On Jun 3, 2007, at 1:23 PM, William Beaty wrote:
How are these filament-shaped flows even possible?
I have a hypothesis. Suppose the ion jet is essentially neutral, with positive ions and electrons (or possibly negative ions formed by air molecules taking on an extra electron) flowing in opposed directions. This then provides several mechanisms for maintaining an extremely tight jet: (1) electrostatic attraction of the opposed charges into a kind of alternating charge filament chain, i.e. steady molecular flow velocity with electrons hopping down the molecules and/ or ions in the opposed direction, (2) magnetic attraction (alternating spin directions between neighbors), (3) magnetic pinch due to a very high current density in nearly molecular diameter jet, and (4) hydrogen bonding (assuming at least some water vapor), van der Waals and other surface tension forces. Ambient molecules of thermal velocity would just bounce off a "hard" jet like that. At high enough currents, the jet breaks up due to intrinsic flow instabilities, like magnetic kinking and pinching.
Regards, Horace Heffner
