Talk:Electric discharge in gases

Veracity of graph
The claim made in this edit that the graph is in error in the glow discharge region seems to be mistaken. The graph as it stands is consistent with that in Gewartowski Principles of Electron Tubes page 538, whereas of the sources quoted by 144.82.184.206, the second seems to be plotting a different quantity (the response of a radiation detector) and the first is for me "content is outside your subscription". I shall revert 144.82.184.206's edit. --catslash (talk) 20:09, 6 July 2015 (UTC)


 * There are problems with the graph in the glow discharge region. The original PNG file has a discontinuity entering the glow discharge region (D-E); the current SVG file did not reproduce the discontinuity. I'd expect most of subnormal glow to be unstable (depends a lot on measuring equipment); GE Glow Lamp Manual (a ref I have enormous trouble with) marks the region as unstable; I'd expect the normal glow region to have less pronounced curvature; GE Glow Lamp Manual has no apparent negative resistance in its F-G region; the caption also has problems because it mentions points rather than segments. I'd also expect saturation (A-B) to be steeper; GE Glow Lamp Manual has satline essentially vertical); that makes physical sense as no recombination and no multiplication just gives cosmic ray current. B-D seems too shallow; GE manual makes this horizontal (GE apparently conflates it with breakdown); MIT's Applied Electronics 1943 has saturation at 30% breakdown voltage and Townsend start at about 60% of breakdown; that's consistent with the Geiger tube characteristic (which is a gas discharge tube). Compare with diagram at thunderbolts.info. I consider the thunderbolts plot much more characteristic of the discharge. Above all, a static diagram is an oversimplification of the IV characteristics; there's a huge ion migration at breakdown that changes the electric fields inside the tube. Glrx (talk) 06:05, 9 July 2015 (UTC)