What Determines the Parameters of a Propagating Streamer: A Comparison of Outputs of the Streamer Parameter Model and of Hydrodynamic Simulations

Electric streamer discharges (streamers) in the air are a very important stage of lightning, taking place before formation of the leader discharge, and with which an electric discharge starts from conducting objects which enhance the background electric field, such as airplanes. Despite years of research, it is still not well understood what mechanism determines the values of a streamer’s parameters, such as its radius and propagation velocity. The novel Streamer Parameter Model (SPM) was made to explain this mechanism, and to provide a way to efficiently calculate streamer parameters. Previously, we demonstrated that SPM results compared well with a limited set of experimental data. In this article, we compare SPM predictions to the published hydrodynamic simulation (HDS) results.
Keywords: atmospheric electricity; electric streamer discharges; streamer theory; streamer parameters; plasma instabilities; partially-ionized plasmas