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Toward Better Understanding of Sprite Streamers: Initiation, Morphology, and Polarity Asymmetry

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Abstract

This paper presents a literature survey on the recent developments related to modeling studies of transient luminous events termed sprites and sprite halos that are produced at mesospheric and lower ionospheric altitudes in the Earth’s atmosphere by lightning. The primary emphasis is placed on publications that appeared in the refereed literature starting from year 2010 and up to the present date. The survey focuses on the interpretation of morphological features observed in sprites. We introduce parameters typically used for quantitative description of electron avalanches and discuss the importance of space charge effects on different spatial scales, including sprite halos (exhibiting 10s of km transverse extents) and sprite streamers (requiring submeter resolution for accurate description). A special emphasis is placed on the interpretation of initiation and development of sprite streamers captured in high-speed video observations and a critical review of the most recent modeling efforts related to these observations. We also discuss fundamental reasons for polarity asymmetry in existing sprite observations indicating that vast majority of sprites with well-developed streamer structure are produced by positive cloud-to-ground lightning discharges.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by the United States National Science Foundation under AGS-0734083 Grant to Penn State University. S. Celestin’s research is supported by the French Space Agency (CNES).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Communications and Space Sciences Laboratory (CSSL), Department of Electrical Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University, 211B Electrical Engineering East, University Park, PA, 16802-2706, USA

    Victor P. Pasko

  2. Communications and Space Sciences Laboratory (CSSL), Department of Electrical Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University, 227 Electrical Engineering East, University Park, PA, 16802-2706, USA

    Jianqi Qin

  3. Laboratory of Physics and Chemistry of the Environment and Space (LPC2E), CNRS, University of Orleans, 3A Avenue de la Recherche Scientifique, 45071, Orleans Cedex 2, France

    Sebastien Celestin

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  1. Victor P. Pasko
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  2. Jianqi Qin
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Correspondence to Victor P. Pasko.

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Pasko, V.P., Qin, J. & Celestin, S. Toward Better Understanding of Sprite Streamers: Initiation, Morphology, and Polarity Asymmetry. Surv Geophys 34, 797–830 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10712-013-9246-y

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