Publications related to Sprite (lightning)

Direct observations of X-rays produced by upward positive lightning

Marcos Rubinstein, Antonio Sunjerga, Farhad Rachidi-Haeri, Thomas Chaumont

X-rays have been observed in natural downward cloud-to-ground lightning for over 20 years and in rocket-triggered lightning for slightly less. In both cases, this energetic radiation has been detected during the stepped and dart leader phases of downward n ...

Nature Publishing Group2024

Modeling lightning strikes to tall towers

Farhad Rachidi-Haeri, Marcos Rubinstein

In this chapter, we present a review of recent progress in the modeling of lightning strikes to tall structures. Since some tall structures are struck by lightning several tens of times per year, they can be used as ground-truth to measure and calibrate th ...

IET2023

Lightning interaction with the ionosphere

Farhad Rachidi-Haeri, Marcos Rubinstein, Dongshuai Li

Lightning discharges, including cloud-to-ground (CG) and intracloud (IC) lightning, are known to emit electromagnetic pulses (EMPs) in a wide frequency band ranging from few Hz up to hundreds MHz [1]. During the breakdown and ionization processes (mostly f ...

IET2023

Tower-foot grounding model for EMT programs based on transmission line theory and Marti's model

Rafael Silva Alipio

This paper proposes a tower-foot grounding system model compatible with EMT programs which might be useful for the simulation of lightning transients in overhead lines. The proposed model is based on the solution of the telegrapher's equations and the appl ...

Elsevier2023

Ionospheric Variations Induced by Thunderstorms in the Central Region of Argentina during the RELAMPAGO–CACTI Campaign

Farhad Rachidi-Haeri, Marcos Rubinstein

The ionosphere can be perturbed by solar and geomagnetic activity, earthquakes, thunderstorms, etc. In particular, electromagnetic pulses produced by thunderstorms can generate wave structures in the ionospheric plasma, which are known as atmospheric gravi ...

2023

Laser-guided lightning

Marcos Rubinstein, Antonio Sunjerga, Farhad Rachidi-Haeri, Amirhossein Mostajabi, Jean-Pierre Wolf, Clemens Herkommer, Pierre Walch, Thomas Produit, Victor Moreno

Lightning discharges between charged clouds and the Earth’s surface are responsible for considerable damages and casualties. It is therefore important to develop better protection methods in addition to the traditional Franklin rod. Here we present the fir ...

Nature Publishing Group2023

Comment on “Straight lightning as a signature of macroscopic dark matter”

Farhad Rachidi-Haeri, Marcos Rubinstein

In the discussed paper [N. Starkman, H. Winch, J. S. Sidhu, and G. Starkman, Straight lightning as a signature of macroscopic dark matter, Phys. Rev. D 103, 063024 (2021)], the authors have made several assumptions and statements concerning the initiation ...

2022

The Geometry and Charge of the Streamer Bursts Generated by Lightning Rods under the Influence of High Electric Fields

Farhad Rachidi-Haeri, Marcos Rubinstein

The streamer bursts generated during the initiation and propagation of leaders play an important role in the creation and maintenance of hot discharge channels in air. The most important parameters related to streamer bursts in this respect are the length ...

2022

The application of the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) technique to lightning studies

Farhad Rachidi-Haeri, Marcos Rubinstein, Dongshuai Li

We have seen in this chapter that the FDTD method for solving Maxwell's equations is accurate and versatile in a very wide variety of applications related to lightning. One can analyze the lightning electromagnetic field propagation over distances ranging ...

IET2022

On the Initiation of Upward Negative Lightning by Nearby Lightning Activity: An Analytical Approach

Marcos Rubinstein, Antonio Sunjerga

Upward lightning occurs generally from tall structures. The mechanism of the initiation of upward lightning is not yet fully understood. Upward lightning can be classified into two categories based on either the absence or the presence of other lightning a ...

2021

Incidence of Upward Lightning Triggered by Nearby Lightning: A Monte Carlo Simulation

Marcos Rubinstein, Antonio Sunjerga, Farhad Rachidi-Haeri

Upward lightning is the dominant type of lightning discharge to tall structures. It has been observed that a significant number of these upward flashes are initiated by nearby lightning activity. The aim of this study is to estimate the incidence of upward ...

2021

Lightning to tall structures: Characterization, Modeling and Protection

Antonio Sunjerga

Lightning physics is highly multidisciplinary, involving areas such as plasma physics, electrical engineering, meteorology, thermodynamics and particle physics. Upward lightning is a special type of lightning initiated from tall structures that has attract ...

EPFL2021

Bidirectional Recoil Leaders in Upward Lightning Flashes Observed at the Säntis Tower

Marcos Rubinstein, Mohammad Azadifar, Antonio Sunjerga, Farhad Rachidi-Haeri, Amirhossein Mostajabi

We report the observation of three negative upward flashes recorded by a high-speed camera at the Säntis Tower during the Summer of 2019. The camera was operating at 10,000 fps and an exposure time of 99 μs. Simultaneous measurements of the lightning curre ...

2021

The laser lightning rod project

Marcos Rubinstein, Antonio Sunjerga, Farhad Rachidi-Haeri, Mohammad Azadifar, Amirhossein Mostajabi, Jean-Pierre Wolf, Clemens Herkommer, Pierre Walch, Thomas Produit

Lightning is highly destructive due to its high power density and unpredictable character. Directing lightning away would allow to protect sensitive sites from its direct and indirect impacts (electromagnetic perturbations). Up to now, lasers have been una ...

2021

Impact of Frequency-Dependent Soil Models on Grounding System Performance for Direct and Indirect Lightning Strikes

Farhad Rachidi-Haeri

The goal of this article is to investigate the effect of frequency-dependent soil models on the performance of grounding electrodes subjected to lightning strikes. Several soil models are examined while accounting for the variation of soil resistivity and ...

2021

Characteristics of different charge transfer modes in upward flashes inferred from simultaneously measured currents and fields

Marcos Rubinstein, Mohammad Azadifar, Farhad Rachidi-Haeri, Davide Pavanello, Lixia He, Qi Li

The authors present an analysis of different charge transfer modes during upward negative flashes. The analysis includes a total number of 94 pulses that occurred during two upward negative flashes recorded at the Säntis Tower. The pulses included 59 mixed ...

2020

LMA observations of upward lightning flashes at the Santis Tower initiated by nearby lightning activity

Marcos Rubinstein, Antonio Sunjerga, Farhad Rachidi-Haeri, Mohammad Azadifar, Amirhossein Mostajabi, Jacopo Grazioli, Nikola Besic, Urs Martin Germann

We present in this paper lightning current measurements, LMA (Lightning Mapping Array) data and fast antenna electric fields associated with upward flashes observed at the Santis Tower during summer of 2017. The LMA network consists of six stations that we ...

Elsevier2020

Field-to-transmission line coupling models

Farhad Rachidi-Haeri, Marcos Rubinstein, Carlo Alberto Nucci

This chapter presents the coupling of lightning electromagnetic fields to overhead and underground lines based on the transmission line approximation. The chapter starts with an introductory section in which the advantages and the drawbacks of three approa ...

IET2020

An Efficient FDTD Method to Calculate Lightning Electromagnetic Fields Over Irregular Terrain Adopting the Moving Computational Domain Technique

Marcos Rubinstein, Mohammad Azadifar, Farhad Rachidi-Haeri, Wenhao Hou, Qilin Zhang

We present an improved finite-difference time domain (FDTD) method based on the moving computational domain technique for the calculation of lightning-generated fields over large-scale irregular terrain. In the improved method, a spatial window moving alon ...

2020

Numerical and Experimental Validation of Electromagnetic Time Reversal for Geolocation of Lightning Strikes

Farhad Rachidi-Haeri, Marcos Rubinstein, Mohammad Azadifar, Amirhossein Mostajabi, Hamidreza Karami

We implement an electromagnetic time reversal technique (EMTR) to locate lightning return strokes. The two-dimensional finite difference time domain is employed to simulate the EMTR process in both, the forward-time and the backward-time phases. Scatterers ...

2020