Investigation of Space-Time Structure of the Discharge with an Electrolytic Anode and Face-Type, Air Half-Space Directed Cathode (Gatchina's Discharge)

Despite of its limited capabilities for ball-lightning modeling, the chemically active dust plasma of electric discharges is a very interesting physical object. Gatchina's discharge, which gives a possibility to study the dust-gas fireball, represents a complex non-stationary process, combining the creation and the destruction of relatively long-living high-enthalpy microscopic states with non-ideal dust plasma and with a gas-dynamic form, resulting in appearance of a spherical luminous object. In the present work we studied spatial structure of the discharge and its dynamics with the help of electric and optical measurements.