In August 2008 Alejandro Luque, Ute Ebert, and Willem Hudsdorfer of the Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica published an article on their research into lightning in the prestigious scientific journal Physical Review Letters. In the article they explain how branches in lightning can sometimes reconnect. So far, knowledge only covered growth and branching.
Reconnection of miles long lightning branches was detected above thunderclouds and on a small scale in laboratory experiments. At CWI Luque, Ebert and Hundsdorfer researched the theoretical side of this phenomenon. They discovered that the attraction and rejection of the heads of two lightning branches during growth depend on the gass density and the proportions of oxygen and nitrogen in the air.
Apart form lightning computations, Ebert also performs experiments. In the lightning lab at the TU Eindhoven Sander Nijdam, Eddie van Veldhuizen and Ebert created artificial lightning and photographed it stereoscopicly. With the three dimensional photographs and the computational model, the structure of lightning trees can be registered and understood in a whole new manner.
Earlier discoveries in the field of discharges gave Ebert the 2004 Minerva Prize. The objective of this prize is to give female researchers in physics more visibility. The research was co-financed by STW.
Attracting and colliding channels in a sprite discharge above a thundercloud. Picture: S.A. Cummer et al., Geophys. Res. Lett. 33, 4104 (2006).
More information: the publication, Phys. Rev. Lett. 101, 075005 (2008) and a Research Highlight in Nature.
