Structure of laboratory ball lightning.
Phys Rev E Stat Nonlin Soft Matter Phys
; 80(6 Pt 2): 067401, 2009 Dec.
Article
em En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-20365306
ABSTRACT
Trajectories of self-sustained laboratory ball lightning, generated by arc discharges with silicon, are investigated for understanding the possibility of buoyant flight. Extremely low apparent densities are found, nearly approaching that of standard air. The freely buoyant balls are observed to survive for about 0.1 s, with significantly buoyant balls surviving for several seconds. These ball lightning objects are found to have a density and size that can easily allow them to be carried by a gentle breeze of a few meters per second. The results are interpreted by a model that is an extension of that first proposed by Abrahamson and Dinniss [J. Abrahamson and J. Dinniss, Nature (London) 403, 519 (2000)]. The buoyant behavior of ball lightning seen in our experiments is believed to arise as a result of the formation of a nanoparticle oxide network growing from a molten silicon core.
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Base de dados:
MEDLINE
Idioma:
En
Ano de publicação:
2009
Tipo de documento:
Article