Expected spectrum of high-energy photons from ball lightning
Mikhail L. Shmatov
Summary and citation · read the original at the source
In one page
Mikhail Shmatov is a plasma physicist at the Ioffe Physical-Technical Institute in St Petersburg who works on inertial-confinement fusion, and he treats ball lightning the same way he treats a fusion target: as a plasma object with a definite internal structure that must give itself away. His model, published two years earlier in the same journal, gives ball lightning a core of two clouds — one of electrons, one of almost completely stripped ions — oscillating against each other. A core like that has to radiate high-energy photons. This paper works out the spectrum you should expect and, more usefully, how to catch it. Shmatov proposes two methods for identifying the photon flux from a ball, and adds a third route that needs no instrument at the scene: examine the tooth enamel of someone who stood close to one. Enamel keeps a physical record of radiation dose, so a witness who later shows signs resembling radiation sickness, or who was badly burned, is carrying the measurement in their own mouth.
Why it matters hereChapter 9 treats plasmoids and glowing orbs as physical objects to be instrumented rather than stories to be collected, and Shmatov supplies the instrument list: if a ball has a charged oscillating core, it must emit high-energy photons, and here is the spectrum and here is how you would catch it. Read it beside Alexander Keul’s witness ledger at /library/stm-48b6e644d4, and beside Shmatov’s own follow-up at /library/stm-51c278d121, where he argues those photons may already have been recorded.
What it claims
01The model assumed here gives ball lightning a core consisting of clouds of electrons and almost totally ionized ions that oscillate with respect to each other, and a core of that kind emits high-energy photons whose spectrum the paper computes.Abstract; model assumption carried over from Shmatov, Journal of Plasma Physics 69 (2003)
Published and peer-reviewed02Two methods are proposed for identifying the flux of high-energy photons emitted by ball lightning, so that an observed ball can be checked against the model rather than only described.Abstract; the two proposed identification methods
Designed, not yet built03A third route needs no instrument at the scene: Shmatov proposes searching for changes in the tooth enamel of people who were close to a ball, enamel being a material that retains a physical record of radiation dose, in order to reveal the effect of such photons on human beings.Abstract; the proposed tooth-enamel diagnostic
Designed, not yet built04The paper names the trigger for that diagnostic: it should be carried out if, after an observation of ball lightning, symptoms similar to those of radiation sickness arise, or if the ball caused heavy burns.Abstract, closing sentence
Designed, not yet built05The underlying model treats ball lightning as a genuinely energetic object — Shmatov’s 2003 paper puts the energy of a ball at of order a million joules or greater, and predicts that such objects could be created deliberately in experiments with ordinary lightning or with powerful electrical installations.Model basis: Shmatov, ‘New model and estimation of the danger of ball lightning’, Journal of Plasma Physics 69 (2003), abstract
Published and peer-reviewed06The prediction has a candidate detection: in 2019 Shmatov argued that the prolonged emission recorded by the Gamma-Ray Observation of Winter Thunderclouds experiment on 13 January 2012 could have come from ball lightning, by way of positron annihilation following a sharp gamma flash at the ball’s formation.Follow-up: Shmatov, Physical Review E 99, 043203 (2019), abstract; on this site at /library/stm-51c278d121
What to watch
The way in
https://doi.org/10.1017/s0022377805004083LICENCE. Published in the Journal of Plasma Physics, volume 72, issue 2, pages 277 to 284, dated April 2006 and published online 7 December 2005; the article page carries the statement ‘2005 Cambridge University Press’ and the Cambridge Core terms, and no Creative Commons statement appears anywhere on it. The full text is behind the publisher’s paywall, so this page reproduces none of it: the summary and the claims below are written from the author’s own published abstract on Cambridge Core, from the model paper it builds on (M. L. Shmatov, ‘New model and estimation of the danger of ball lightning’, Journal of Plasma Physics 69, 2003) and from the author’s later follow-up in Physical Review E 99, 043203 (2019), which restates the model. The author is at the Ioffe Physical-Technical Institute, St Petersburg. Companion sheets on this site: the follow-up detection paper at /library/stm-51c278d121 and Alexander Keul’s case history at /library/stm-48b6e644d4.
How to cite it
Mikhail L. Shmatov (2005) Expected spectrum of high-energy photons from ball lightning. doi:10.1017/s0022377805004083
Where it sits in the curriculum