Runaway electrification of friable self-replicating granular matter

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that nonlinear collision dynamics in self-replicating granular materials can lead to runaway electrification, with laboratory experiments confirming the formation of charged, breakable ice structures that promote secondary nucleation.

Contribution

It introduces a minimal dynamical model showing how secondary nucleation causes positive feedback leading to runaway charging in self-replicating granular matter, supported by laboratory experiments.

Findings

Runaway charging occurs due to positive feedback from secondary nucleation.

Laboratory experiments show ice structures become charged and breakable during growth.

The mechanism explains lightning phenomena in thunderstorms and planetary atmospheres.

Abstract

We establish that the nonlinear dynamics of collisions between particles favors the charging of a insulating, friable, self-replicating granular material that undergoes nucleation, growth, and fission processes; we demonstrate with a minimal dynamical model that secondary nucleation produces a positive feedback in an electrification mechanism that leads to runaway charging. We discuss ice as an example of such a self-replicating granular material: We confirm with laboratory experiments in which we grow ice from the vapor phase in situ within an environmental scanning electron microscope that charging causes fast-growing and easily breakable palm-like structures to form, which when broken off may form secondary nuclei. We propose that thunderstorms, both terrestrial and on other planets, and lightning in the solar nebula are instances of such runaway charging arising from this nonlinear dynamics in self-replicating granular matter.