Surface Tension of a Cloud of Charged Microparticles in a Gas-Discharge Plasma

A model for calculating the surface tension coefficient of a spherical cloud of charged microparticles in a plasma is proposed. The coefficients of the surface tension of Coulomb spheres obtained in a low-pressure glow discharge in neon at a temperature of 77 K for particles with a diameter of 4 μm and a temperature of 295 K for particles with a diameter of 2 μm are calculated. The potential energy of microparticles on the surface of a sphere is determined. In the calculations, a hydrodynamic model of a positive column with charged microparticles is used. The obtained values of the surface tension coefficient are compared with the data obtained by other authors for ball lightnings. A hypothesis is proposed for the formation of Coulomb spheres in the Earth’s atmosphere.