Trichel: Investigator sites log

Run 1: 2026-10-04 (STEP I, first run, standard 10-minute browsing cap). Browsing ran from date +%s 1791146153 for about 365 s by the shell clock, then stopped with the next targets listed below as not reached. Chrome (claude-in-chrome) was used for search and browsing. WebFetch was used only for one PDF that Chrome's viewer could not give as text.

Keywords tried

1. "Trichel" "Mechanism of the Negative Point-to-Plane Corona" 1938 Physical Review
2. Trichel "Phys. Rev." 55 382 1939 positive point-to-plane corona
3. "George W. Trichel" OR "George Trichel" physics Berkeley Loeb thesis (no results)
4. "G. W. Trichel" Trichel physicist biography 1938 Berkeley Ph.D.
5. "Gervais W. Trichel" OR "Gervais Trichel" physics Berkeley corona
6. "Trichel" colonel ordnance "Ph.D." physics "University of California" 1938
7. "Gervais William Trichel"
8. prabook "Gervais William Trichel" education University of California
9. Sattari Castle Adamiak Trichel pulses thesis OR "IEEE Transactions" FEM-FCT
10. Dordizadeh Basirabad "Trichel pulses" thesis Western experimental needle
11. Lama Gallo 1974 "Systematic study of the electrical characteristics of the Trichel current pulses"
12. Akishev Grushin Deryugin TRINITI ABB 1997 Trichel report "two-dimensional model"
13. "11.93" "449.3" ionization corona (negative)
14. Trichel 1938 dissertation "University of California" corona "Thesis (Ph. D.)" OR worldcat
15. WorldCat: au:Trichel corona (blocked)
16. Gallo Trichel pulse "ionization channel" negative needle tip microscope OR "field emission" onset -2.3 kV
17. Shaygani Adamiak 2023 "Numerical approaches in simulating Trichel pulse" (+ "abstract")
18. Dordizadeh 2017 "Experimental study of the characteristics of Trichel pulses"
19. "G. W. Trichel" "Phys. Rev." -1078 -382 1939 OR 1940 OR 1937
20. Loeb "Trichel" "Army" OR "Captain" OR "Lieutenant" corona Berkeley 1937 student
21. site:archive.org Loeb "Fundamental processes of electrical discharge in gases" Trichel
22. archive.org advancedsearch title:(fundamental processes electrical discharge gases)
23. Lama Gallo "Trichel" J. Appl. Phys. 45 103 1974 pubs.aip.org abstract (only the volume link)

Next-run keyword ideas (not yet tried): - "Trichel" "Frankford Arsenal" - "Trichel" Berkeley "Doctor of Philosophy" 1938 commencement - Zentner "Anstiegzeiten" negative Korona 1970 - Napartovich Akishev 1997 Trichel J. Phys. D - C. F. Gallo Xerox corona (Lama and Gallo's affiliation as Xerox is [memory, medium]; check it) - "Trichel pulse" nitrogen OR argon experiment - Haidara Denat Atten high pressure air corona - Kokovin 2021 Trichel stationary mode - Friebe 2021 MDPI Trichel

Leads for review

1. The inventor's own work (G. W. Trichel; and the ESA paper's authors)

• Trichel's own negative-corona paper is Phys. Rev. 54, 1078 (15 Dec 1938) [web] https://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRev.54.1078. The abstract states:
• the current is made of discrete pulses whose size and frequency depend on current, point size and pressure;
• the frequency is independent of gap length;
• the pulses are not affected by the external circuit constants;
• the periodicity comes from space-charge formation and clearing. It bears on claims 1-2. The ESA paper's ref. [2] (Phys. Rev. 55, 382) is actually his POSITIVE-corona paper (1939) [web] https://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRev.55.382. Sattari's thesis repeats this citation.
• Trichel's oscillograms and an enlarged sketch of the negative point glow survive in L. B. Loeb, Fundamental Processes of Electrical Discharge in Gases (1939), Figs. 243, 247, 248, around pp. 515-520 [web] https://archive.org/stream/in.ernet.dli.2015.74804/2015.74804.Fundamental-Processes-Of-Electrical-Discharge-In-Gases_djvu.txt. Claims 1-2.
• The authors' own fuller work: Sattari's 2011 PhD thesis (research/files/Sattari-2011-PhD-thesis-UWO.pdf) [web] https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd/215. Bears on claims 3-5:
• It prints ki = 10^(11.93 - 449.3/EN), which resolves the deep read's suspected misprint in the ESA paper (4.493).
• It gives ion mobilities of 2.24e-4 and 2.16e-4 m^2/Vs, R_ext = 100 kOhm and Cd = 0.055 pF.
• Its "Gallo's T" reference periods (11.3, 8.1, 6.1, 4.8 us at -7 to -10 kV) are not the ESA paper's experimental values (21.85, 13.32, 9.09, 5.07 us). The model now overestimates rather than underestimates. The thesis text is itself inconsistent on the direction (Ch. 8.2 says both).
• In simulation, period depends on R_ext and ion mobility; the secondary-emission coefficient has little effect.
• The group's later work (claims 4-5):
• Dordizadeh, Adamiak, Castle, J. Electrostatics 88 (2017) 49-54. Measured rise, fall and width did not depend on radius, voltage or gap; good agreement with Lama and Gallo; "some discrepancies" with simulation [web] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0304388616301735.
• Dordizadeh Basirabad, PhD thesis (2016) (not read).
• Shaygani and Adamiak, J. Phys. D 56 (2023) 385202, which compares three rate-coefficient formulations [web] https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1361-6463/acdd0f/meta.

2. Supporting information by others

• C. F. Gallo's previously unpublished microscope observations, reported in Sattari's thesis Ch. 8.3 (with Fig. 8.3 and Table 8.1). This is one source: Gallo's own observations, relayed by collaborators. No independent publication found yet. The observations:
• an "extremely narrow bright ionization channel" (0.12-2 um wide) at the negative tip, not seen in positive corona;
• wobble of the channel on sharp tips, which the source says explains the "mode shifts" Loeb and Trichel described;
• onset at -2.3 kV, roughly independent of tip radius, against a calculated -4.7 kV. The authors suggest magnetic confinement by the high current density, and localized field emission. A refit with an "effective tip radius" of 10 um matched Gallo's period to 15% and his current to 23%. This bears on claims 4-5, on the geometry mismatch the deep read flagged, and on claim 2 (the physics at the tip).
• Lama and Gallo's empirical laws, as quoted in the thesis: f ~ K1 V(V - V0)/(r d^2) and I ~ K2 V(V - V0)/d^2. Claim 4.
• Dordizadeh 2017 measured onset of -4 to -6 kV for 19-55 um tips. That differs from Gallo's -2.3 kV; the two experimental records disagree. Claims 4-5.

3. Closely related work

• Zhang, Xia, Jiang, Ouyang, Sci. Rep. 7:10135 (2017) [web] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5579005/. In their experiments, Trichel pulses occur "in various gases rather than only in electronegative gases". Positive ions play the "predominant role" and negative ions are "not necessary". They describe the pulse as a Townsend-to-glow mode transition. This counters claims 1 and 2 directly, and is reported as these authors' finding.
• Other models found but not read:
• Kokovin et al. 2021, multi-fluid model of the transition from Trichel pulses to stationary corona;
• Ferreira et al. 2025, stability of low-current needle corona;
• Friebe et al. 2021, MDPI;
• Eindhoven 1987 thesis, "Negative corona discharges: a fundamental study".
• The rate coefficients trace to the TRINITI (Akishev et al.) 1997 report for ABB, which is not online. ABB is a commercial party; the report stays unverifiable.

4. Historical record

• Identity: G. W. Trichel is Gervais William Trichel (1898-1990), a career U.S. Army officer.
• Sources:
  • Redmond and Smith, Project Whirlwind (1975): "M.S. degree in engineering at MIT, a Ph.D. in electrical engineering at the University of California in 1938" [web] archive.org;
  • Loeb's 1939 preface: "Dr. G. W. Trichel (Captain, Ordnance Corps, U. S. Army)" [web] archive.org;
  • Prabook career entry.
• Career after the corona work:
  • Frankford Arsenal fire-control design, 1938-43;
  • chief of the Ordnance rocket development division, 1943-45, which sponsored early JPL/GALCIT work and V-2 exploitation (JPL and NASA histories, snippets);
  • atomic bomb project advisory board, 1946;
  • member of the 1949 Ad Hoc Panel on Electronic Digital Computers;
  • Chrysler, 1947-63.
• Bearing (absence of evidence): Trichel's corona research stops after 1939, but the record does not go dark. He returned to military ordnance duty. Other explanations (suppression, commercial secrecy) have no support in what was found. His 1937-39 work was doctoral research done while he was a serving officer.
• Not yet found: the 1938 Berkeley dissertation itself (title, catalogue record). WorldCat was blocked; try the UC Berkeley library catalogue or ProQuest.

Not reached (time limit): start here next run

• AIP: Lama and Gallo 1974 abstract (geometry and R values for Table 1 equivalence); Amin 1954.
• IEEE Xplore: Sattari et al. 2011 TIA 47(4); 2010 TIA 46(5).
• CORE or Western: Dordizadeh Basirabad 2016 thesis (Ch. 6 experiments).
• UC Berkeley library or ProQuest: Trichel's 1938 dissertation.
• Library of Congress, Vannevar Bush Papers finding aid (Trichel 1949).
• Find a Grave, Military Times, NASA "Power to Explore".
• archive.org book reader: page images of Loeb 1939 Figs. 243, 247, 248.
• Zentner 1970 (rise time 1.3 ns); Napartovich et al. 1997.