Influence of the pre-ionization background and simulation of the optical emission of a streamer discharge in preheated air at atmospheric pressure between two point electrodes

This paper presents simulations of positive and negative streamers propagating between two point electrodes in preheated air at atmospheric pressure. As many discharges have occurred before the simulated one, seed charges are taken into account in the interelectrode gap. First, for a pre-ionization background of 10⁹ cm^-3, we have studied the influence of the data set used for transport parameters and reaction rates for air on the simulation results. We have compared results obtained in 1997 using input parameters from Morrow and Lowke and from Kulikovsky. Deviations as large as 20% of streamer characteristics (i.e. electric field in the streamer head and body, streamer velocity, streamer radius, streamer electron density) have been observed for this point-to-point configuration. Second, we have studied the influence of the pulsed voltage frequency on the discharge structure. For the studied discharge regime, a change in the applied voltage frequency corresponds to a change in the pre-ionization background. In this work, we have considered a wide range of pre-ionization values from 10⁴ and up to 10 ⁹ cm^-3. We have noted that the value of the pre-ionization background has a small influence on the electron density, electric field and location of the negative streamer head. Conversely, it has a significant influence on the positive streamer characteristics. Finally, we have compared instantaneous and time-averaged optical emissions of the three band systems of N₂ and (1PN₂, 2PN₂ and) during the discharge propagation. We have shown that the emission of the 2PN₂ is the strongest of the three bands, in agreement with experimental observations. It is interesting to note that even with a short time averaging of a few nanoseconds, which corresponds to currently used instruments, the structure of the time-averaged emission of the 2PN₂ is different from the instantaneous one and shows negative and positive streamers with smaller radial expansions and more diffuse streamer heads.