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On Lightning Control Using Lasers

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Progress in Ultrafast Intense Laser Science

Part of the book series: Springer Series in Chemical Physics ((PUILS,volume 98))

Summary

After a quick review of historic lightning research, we discuss developments aiming at triggering and guiding lightning using lasers. We recall the limitations inherent to high-energy, nanosecond pulses and discuss the new perspective introduced by the advent of ultrashort, high-power laser pulses and the long ionized filaments they induce in air. After describing a recent field campaign where the triggering of electric activity in thunderclouds by ultrashort lasers was demonstrated for the first time, we discuss perspectives for improvements of both the sequence of laser pulses and the experimental configuration.

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Acknowledgements

This work has been performed in the framework of the Teramobile collaboration (www.teramobile.org), funded jointly by the CNRS, DFG, French and German ministries of Foreign affairs, Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR, grant # NT05–1_ 43175), Fonds national suisse de la recherche scientifique (FNS, grants #200021–111688/1 and 200021–116198/1), and the Swiss Secrétariat d’État à l’Éducation et à la Recherche (COST P18 action C06.0114). We acknowledge all our collaborators within the Teramobile project for common work and constructive discussions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Teramobile, GAP Université de Genève, 20 rue de l’École de Médecine, CH-1211, Genève 4, Switzerland

    Jérôme Kasparian & Jean-Pierre Wolf

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  1. Jérôme Kasparian
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  2. Jean-Pierre Wolf
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Correspondence to Jérôme Kasparian .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemistry, University of Tokyo, Hongo 7-3-1, Tokyo, 113-0033, Japan

    Kaoru Yamanouchi

  2. Intense Laser Irradiation Lab., Istituto per i Processi Chimico-Fisici, Via G. Moruzzi 1, Pisa, 56124, Italy

    Antonio Giulietti

  3. Dept. Physics, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, G4 0NG, United Kingdom

    Kenneth Ledingham

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Kasparian, J., Wolf, JP. (2010). On Lightning Control Using Lasers. In: Yamanouchi, K., Giulietti, A., Ledingham, K. (eds) Progress in Ultrafast Intense Laser Science. Springer Series in Chemical Physics, vol 98. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-03825-9_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-03825-9_6

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