BALL LIGHTNING AS A SELF-ORGANIZING PROCESS OF A PLASMA-PLASMA INTERFACE - A THEORETICAL APPROACH

Ball lightning (BL) appears as haphazard phenomena, usually associated with thunderstorms, in the form of free-floating, relatively long living flaming globes having different dimensions and colors. Because of their random appearances, a direct experimental investigation was not possible up to now. Consequently, information concerning their visual image and behavior is mainly based on qualitative reports of eyewitnesses and on rare photographs. There are two different opinions on the generation of a BL. One of these starts from the hypothesis that the generation and lifetime of BL can be explained by considering the energy accumulated during its generation by a lightning stroke [1, 2]. The other opinion relates the appearance and lifetime of BL with a local concentration of the radio frequency (RF) electric field energy, possible after interference of electromagnetic waves produced by atmospheric electricity [3, 4]. In a recent paper [5], the genesis and characteristics of BL are explained within the framework of a new self-organizing physical scenario suggested by laboratory investigation of formation and stability of self-consistent extended macroscopic space charge configurations. These are known as fireballs in dc gas discharges and as plasmoids in gas discharges sustained by a radio frequency electric field. The paper justify the proposed explanation with a test experiment