Propagation Effects of Slanted Narrow Bipolar Events: A Rebounding-Wave
Model Study
Abstract
Narrow bipolar events (NBEs) are impulsive and powerful intracloud
discharges. Recent observations indicate that some NBEs exhibit a
slanted orientation rather than strictly vertical. However, the
inclination of NBEs has not been considered in previous transmission
line models, leading to uncertainty when evaluating their
characteristics based on electromagnetic fields. This paper investigates
the propagation effects of slanted NBEs using a newly developed slanted
rebounding-wave model. It is found that the calculated results using the
proposed model match well with measurements for both vertical and
slanted NBE cases. The inclination of the NBEs significantly affects the
electromagnetic fields at close distances, while the effects weaken as
the observation distance increases, where the fields are dominated by
the radiation component. The slanted rebounding-wave model improves the
agreement with respect to a purely vertical channel and can be extended
to any discharge geometry at arbitrary observation distances.