Johann Bernoulli lezing 33

-
Tuesday, 2 April 2024, 19:30
-
Aula Academy Builidng
Prof.dr. Ute Ebert (CWI en Scientific Staff Member, Professor - Technische Universiteit Eindhoven)
Please click here for Livestream Bernoulli Lecture 2024
Title: The unseen structures of lightning
Abstract: Lightning is mostly known as lightning bolts and thunder between cloud and ground, but 90% of all large electric discharges in thunderclouds don’t produce such strikes to ground. Rather there is extensive discharge activity within and around thunderclouds. Fast (movie) cameras on ground, on air planes and from space, chemical and radio measurements, and detectors for high energy radiation have established:
-
Intracloud electric discharges can extend over hundreds of kilometers horizontally.
-
A zoo of “transient luminous events” can occur between cloud tops and the ionosphere.
-
Active thunderstorms can emit high energy radiation like gamma-rays and electron-positron pairs, and they even can trigger nuclear reactions in air molecules.
-
The discharges produce nitrogen-oxides and ozone which are greenhouse gases.
I will briefly introduce these phenomena, and then explain the basic physical mechanisms across multiple scales. Starting from the collisions of electrons with molecules in an electric field, I will explain in particular the mechanism of electric field enhancement at the tips of growing discharge channels. These tips are soliton-like structures very far from thermal equilibrium, and the sources of the chemical and high energy emissions. And they are a unique point where observations with the radio telescope LOFAR in Exloo (Drenthe), laboratory experiments at TU Eindhoven and models of the CWI group in Amsterdam meet quantitatively! I will explain puzzles, paradoxes and the state of the art of our understanding.
Laudatio: Ton Schoot Uiterkamp (KNG)

Last modified: | 07 March 2024 10.52 a.m. |
More news
-
15 April 2025
1.5 million funding from Province of Groningen for innovative technology in the region
The University of Groningen will receive nearly 1.5 million euros in funding from the Province of Groningen to assist entrepreneurial academic researchers in developing innovative ideas into a startup.
-
15 April 2025
Nathalie Katsonis wins Ammodo Science Award 2025
For her pioneering research on molecular systems, Nathalie Katsonis receives the Ammodo Science Award for fundamental research 2025.
-
15 April 2025
Fundamental research with life-size effects
Nathalie Katsonis has won the Ammodo Science Award for Fundamental Research. She develops adaptive molecular materials and studies the chemical origins of life, which in turn yield insights for vaccines and clearing up oil spills at sea.