Electric field strength of charged conducting balls and the breakdown of the air gap between them

Field amplification factors at the surfaces of two charged conducting balls are calculated numerically. It is shown that as the balls are brought closer together, except when their potentials are equal, the amplification factors go to infinity, and in the case of like-charged balls the field at the surface of one of them changes sign. Breakdown field strengths for the air gap between balls of a different diameter are calculated using the experimental data of other authors as the base. The results suggest that the minimum breakdown field strength is 26 kV cm^-1 . The author’s earlier results on the interaction force between the balls are revised.

PACS: 41.20.Cv, 52.80.−s (all)
DOI: 10.1070/PU2002v045n12ABEH001203
URL: https://ufn.ru/en/articles/2002/12/d/
Web of Science

000182061800004
Citation: Saranin V A "Electric field strength of charged conducting balls and the breakdown of the air gap between them" Phys. Usp. 45 1287–1292 (2002)

BibTexBibNote ® (generic)BibNote ® (RIS)MedlineRefWorks

Оригинал: Саранин В А «Напряженность электрического поля заряженных проводящих шаров и пробой воздушного промежутка между ними» УФН 172 1449–1454 (2002); DOI: 10.3367/UFNr.0172.200212e.1449

References (20) Cited by (22) Similar articles (20) ↓

V.A. Saranin “On the interaction of two electrically charged conducting balls” 42 385–390 (1999)
V.A. Saranin, V.V. Mayer “Interaction of two charged conducting balls: theory and experiment” 53 1067–1074 (2010)
V.A. Saranin “Electrostatic oscillators” 55 700–708 (2012)
M.Ya. Agre “Multipole expansions in magnetostatics” 54 167–180 (2011)
R.Z. Muratov “Some useful correspondences in classical magnetostatics, and the multipole representations of the magnetic potential of an ellipsoid” 55 919–928 (2012)
G.N. Gaidukov, I.N. Gorbatyy “Electromagnetic analogies in electro- and magnetostatics problems” 62 413–420 (2019)
V.P. Kazantsev “An example illustrating the potentiality and peculiarities of a variational approach to electrostatic problems” 45 325–330 (2002)
A.A. Rukhadze, N.N. Sobolev, V.V. Sokovikov “Similarity relations for low-temperature nonisothermal discharges” 34 (9) 827–829 (1991)
M.A. Miller “Charge and current electrostatics. Nonstationary sources of static fields” 27 69–75 (1984)
V.V. Mayer, E.I. Varaksina, V.A. Saranin “A drop jumps to weightlessness: a lecture demo” 60 108–113 (2017)
A.I. Egorov, S.I. Stepanov, G.D. Shabanov “Laboratory demonstration of ball lightning” 47 99–101 (2004)
M.L. Martinson, A.V. Nedospasov “On the charge density inside a conductor carrying a current” 36 (1) 23–24 (1993)
B.A. Trubnikov “Constrictions in a relativistic pinch with a longitudinal magnetic field” 34 (11) 1018–1020 (1991)
S.F. Garanin, S.D. Kuznetsov “Irrotational flow (of a magnetic field or incompressible fluid) around a screen with a slot” 63 1037–1042 (2020)
L.N. Kaptsov “Lecture demonstration of ponderomotive forces in electrostatics with the aid of a soap film” 6 324–324 (1963)
V.V. Mayer, E.I. Varaksina, V.A. Saranin “Simple lecture demonstrations of instability and self-organization” 57 1130–1135 (2014)
Yu.A. Kravtsov, A.I. Saichev “Effects of double passage of waves in randomly inhomogeneous media” 25 494–508 (1982)
A.I. Musienko, L.I. Manevich “Classical mechanical analogs of relativistic effects” 47 797–820 (2004)
M.A. Chernikov “Elastic properties of icosahedral and decagonal quasicrystals” 48 411–417 (2005)
V.D. Lakhno “Translation invariance and the problem of the bipolaron” 41 403–406 (1998)

The list is formed automatically.