Center for Astrophysics Research and Technologies Seminar Series
Lightning Research at New Mexico Tech
Presented by Jeff Lapierre (NMT)
Despite our almost universal familiarity with lightning, its transient nature has made understanding the physics underlying its production challenging. New Mexico Tech (NMT) is one of the premiere centers for lightning research in the world, with projects ranging from triggering lightning with rockets to mapping Electric fields using interferometric arrays. These diverse projects at NMT are improving our understanding of lightning initiation and propagation through the detailed study of the many unique phenomena that occur during a single lightning flash, such as "continuing current." When lightning connects to ground, a large surge of current occurs, which is called a return stroke (RS). Continuing current is a steady, relatively long-lived current that sometimes flows after a return stroke. Here, I will present a detailed study of the relationship between cloud activity and CC duration, which may help improve our understanding of when CC occurs and, therefore, our ability to protect against this most damaging aspect of lightning.
2:00 pm, Thursday, February 6, 2014
PAIS-2540, PAIS
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A schedule of talks within the Department of Physics and Astronomy is available on the P&A web site at http://physics.unm.edu/pandaweb/events/index.php