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Re: Positive VS negative streamer



Hi John, All,
    This is an example of the tendency of positive streamers to travel
faster than negative streamers.  The competition of processes going on at
the terminal of a Tesla coil favors the growth of positive streamers.  They
grow faster, ionize more air, and tend to accumulate due to the inability
of the negative streamer to neutralize them.  This accumulation of positive
space charge attracts electrons.  I am guessing that the accumulation of
negative space charge around the region of positive space charge is what
everyone is measuring.  If a good long streamer were to strike a grounded
rod with a current probe around it, the first rising edge of the waveform
would indicate direction of electron flow and thus maybe the true polarity
of that extra long streamer.  

    Barry

-----Original Message-----
From: Tesla List +ADw-tesla+AEA-pupman-dot-com+AD4-
To: tesla+AEA-pupman-dot-com +ADw-tesla+AEA-pupman-dot-com+AD4-
Date: Sunday, October 25, 1998 9:23 PM
Subject: Re: Positive VS negative streamer


Original Poster: +ACI-John H. Couture+ACI-
+ADw-couturejh+AEA-worldnet.att-dot-net+AD4- 

At 03:51 PM 10/24/98 -0600, you wrote:
+AD4-Original Poster: +ACI-B+ACoAKg-2+ACI- +ADw-bensonbd+AEA-erols-dot-com+AD4- 
+AD4-
+AD4-Hi All,
+AD4-    Found the following information.  Seems to relate to recent
measurements.
+AD4-
+AD4-Quote:
+AD4-
+AD4AIg-EXPERIMENTS CONDUCTED IN THE LABORATORY
+AD4-
+AD4-    To understand the basic mechanism by which the positive corona sheath
+AD4-is neutralized by the return stroke, we conducted the following
experiments
+AD4-in the laboratory.  The potential of the central wire of a coaxial
+AD4-cylindrical system was raised to a very high level by applying a positive
+AD4-voltage impulse.  This pulse led to the generation of positive space
charge

-----------------  snip

  It should be noted that the Tesla coil uses a high frequency dampened
sine wave not a voltage impulse. So how does this post apply to Tesla coil
operation?

  John Couture