Density models for streamer discharges: beyond cylindrical symmetry and homogeneous media

TL;DR

This paper reviews density models for streamer discharges, emphasizing advanced numerical schemes and recent developments that extend beyond traditional symmetrical and homogeneous assumptions.

Contribution

It introduces adaptive refinement techniques and discusses recent progress in modeling non-symmetrical, inhomogeneous streamer discharges.

Findings

Adaptive refinement improves computational efficiency

Models now capture complex, asymmetric streamer behaviors

Recent results extend understanding of streamer dynamics

Abstract

Streamer electrical discharges are often investigated with computer simulations of density models (also called drift-diffusion-reaction models). We review these models, detailing their physical foundations, their range of validity and the most relevant numerical algorithms employed in solving them. We focus particularly on schemes of adaptative refinement, used to resolve the multiple length scales in a streamer discharge without a high computational cost. We then report recent results from these models, emphasizing developments that go beyond cylindrically symmetrical streamers propagating in homogeneous media.