Abstract
IN a paper which has recently attracted a considerable amount of attention, Kapitza1 has proposed a standing electromagnetic wave description of ball lightning. His paper presents a good qualitative explanation of this effect in terms of the resonance absorption of a standing wave due to a conducting ionized sphere of plasma, occurring when the wavelength of the radiation is approximately four times the diameter of the fireball.
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References
Kapitza, P. L., Doklady, U.S.S.R. (1955).
Cushing, V., and Sodha, M. S., “Confinement of Plasma by Standing E–M Waves”, “Physics of Fluids” (to be published).
McLachlin, N. W., “Theory and Applications of Mathieu Functions” (Oxf. Univ. Press, New York, 1947).
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WATSON, W. A Theory of Ball Lightning Formation. Nature 185, 449–450 (1960). https://doi.org/10.1038/185449a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/185449a0
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