The thermal instability of discharge plasma in air is analyzed. The contributions of specific mechanisms of instability are examined, including VT relaxation, the increase in the fractional energy dissipation via rapid heating due to an increase in reduced field strength, and ionization thermal instability. The effects of acoustic wave generation caused by heating and of charged particle motion relative to the neutral gas on both the length scale and the growth rate of unstable fluctuations are taken into account.
Department of Physical Electronics, Faculty of Physics, Moscow State University, Leninskie gory, Moscow, 119992, Russia
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