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Fractal Model of a Compact Intracloud Discharge. I. Features of the Structure and Evolution

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We propose a new model of a compact intracloud discharge considered as the result of interaction between two (or more) bipolar streamer structures formed in a strong large-scale electric field of a thundercloud. The model assumes two stages of the compact discharge development. At the preliminary stage, two or more bipolar streamer structures appear successively in the thundercloud in the region of a strong electric field (at the boundaries between the regions of the main positive and the main negative electric charges or between the main positive charge region and the top negative screening layer). The time of development of such structures is determined by the characteristics of the conducting channels that form them and can reach tens of milliseconds. Spatiotemporal synchronization of the bipolar streamer structures is provided by the altitude modulation of the electric field, which, in particular, can originate from a large-scale turbulence of the cloud medium or the stream instability. It is shown that a single bipolar streamer structure accumulates significant electric charges of different signs at its ends as it develops. The start of the main stage of a compact intracloud discharge corresponds to the occurrence of the conducting channel (breakdown of the gap) between the mature streamer structures. The electric charge accumulated at the adjacent ends of the structures at this stage is neutralized over a time much shorter than the duration of the preliminary stage. The parameters of the current pulse are in good agreement with the estimates of the current of a compact intracloud discharge which were obtained in the transmission-line approximation.

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  1. Institute of Applied Physics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Nizhny, Novgorod, Russia

    D. I. Iudin & S. S. Davydenko

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  1. D. I. Iudin
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  2. S. S. Davydenko
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Correspondence to S. S. Davydenko.

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Translated from Izvestiya Vysshikh Uchebnykh Zavedenii, Radiofizika, Vol. 58, No. 7, pp. 530–551, July 2015.

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Iudin, D.I., Davydenko, S.S. Fractal Model of a Compact Intracloud Discharge. I. Features of the Structure and Evolution. Radiophys Quantum El 58, 477–496 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11141-015-9621-2

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