Breakdown conditions and thermal instability in air

Summary Reduced electric fields (E/N) responsible for electrical breakdown in air have been calculated by solving a stationary Boltzmann equation including superelastic vibrational collisions. The results show a decrease ofE/N with increasing gas temperature. The possibility of air instability due to chemical processes producing electrons is then investigated by calculating the threshold of this instability as a function of a characteristic time for heat dissipation τ.