Positive and negative streamers in ambient air: modeling evolution and velocities

We simulate short positive and negative streamers in air at standard temperature and pressure. They evolve in homogeneous electric fields or emerge from needle electrodes with voltages of 10 to 20 kV. The streamer velocity at given streamer length depends only weakly on the initial ionization seed, except in the case of negative streamers in homogeneous fields. We characterize the streamers by length, head radius, head charge and field enhancement. We show that the velocity of positive streamers is mainly determined by their radius and in quantitative agreement with recent experimental results both for radius and velocity. The velocity of negative streamers is dominated by electron drift in the enhanced field; in the low local fields of the present simulations, it is little influenced by photo-ionization. Though negative streamer fronts always move at least with the electron drift velocity in the local field, this drift motion broadens the streamer head, decreases the field enhancement and ultimately leads to slower propagation or even extinction of the negative streamer.