The experiments on the long-living plasmoids from an atmospheric water discharge which revealed some reported ball lightning phenomena [1] have been continued after the transfer of the components from the Berlin group to the Max-Planck-Institut fuer Plasmaphysik in Garching. The revised setup allows for systematic investigations of the energy supplied to the water discharge by variations of the number of the capacitors, the voltage-on time, the gap between the electrodes, the size of the water container and the electrical conductivity of the water. A clear dependence of the duration of the autonomous phase and the ascent velocity of the plasmoid on the energy is observed. The autonomous phase saturates in the present setup at about 450 ms whereas the ascent velocity increases to values up to 2 m/s. Electrical measurements of voltage and current are coupled with video recording and optical emission spectroscopy of the plasmoid.
展开▼
