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Spontaneous Branching of Anode-Directed Streamers between Planar Electrodes

Manuel Arrayas·Ute Ebert·Willem Hundsdorfer
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Abstract

Non-ionized media subject to strong fields can become locally ionized by penetration of finger-shaped streamers. We study negative streamers between planar electrodes in a simple deterministic continuum approximation. We observe that for sufficiently large fields, the streamer tip can split. This happens close to Firsov's limit of `ideal conductivity'. Qualitatively the tip splitting is due to a Laplacian instability quite like in viscous fingering. For future quantitative analytical progress, our stability analysis of planar fronts identifies the screening length as a regularization mechanism.

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Manuel Arrayas, Ute Ebert, Willem Hundsdorfer. 2002-03-11. Spontaneous Branching of Anode-Directed Streamers between Planar Electrodes. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.88.174502

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