Guided waves along an unmagnetized lightning plasma channel

The characteristics of a train of electromagnetic pulses traveling along an unmagnetized, unbounded lightning plasma column are considered. The motivation is to avoid the loss of low-flying, computer-controlled aircraft on account of very small lightning-radiated electromagnetic fields including parasitic currents in the onboard computing equipment. From Ampere's and Faraday's laws, applying appropriate boundary conditions at the edge of the channel and far away from it, the solution to the complex wave number, as well as the attenuation and phase constants of the signals traveling down the channel, is found. The results are shown to be in good agreement with observed return stroke characteristics.< >