Pulsating fireballs with high-frequency sheath–plasma instabilities

Abstract

High-frequency instabilities are observed in connection with unstable fireballs. Fireballs are discharge phenomena near positively biased electrodes in discharge plasmas. They are bounded by a double layer whose potential is of order of the ionization potential. Fireballs become unstable when plasma losses and plasma production are not in balance, resulting in periodic fireball pulses. High-frequency instabilities in the range of the electron plasma frequency have been observed. These occur between fireball pulses, hence are not due to electron beam–plasma instabilities since there are no beams without double layers. The instability has been identified as a sheath–plasma instability. Electron inertia creates a phase shift between high-frequency current and electric fields which destabilizes the sheath–plasma resonance. High-frequency signals are observed in the current to the electrode and on probes near the sheath of the electrode. Waveforms and spectra are presented, showing bursty emissions, phase shifts, frequency jumps, beat phenomena between two sheaths, and nonlinear effects such as amplitude clipping. These reveal many interesting properties of sheaths with periodic ionization phenomena.