BALL LIGHTNING: A MYSTERY OR A CLUE?

Abstract

The physical state of the substance of ball lightning (BL) is one of the most important problems of modern physics. The main issues are its stability, energy (about 30 kJ are released in one gram of CMM substance), the action of surface tension forces in a substance with air density and electromagnetic phenomena of an obscure nature - from electric sparking to radio emission and magnetic effects. The paper proposes a physical mechanism for the formation of BL based on the forces of a quantum nature, which are realized in a non-ideal but non-degenerate plasma. In the case when the de Broglie wavelength of thermal electrons, as the plasma temperature decreases, turns out to be several times smaller than the interion distance, the intercenter interference overlap of the electron wave functions becomes significant. Quantum forces generated by such an overlap "collectively" link the particles, the energy of the system decreases ( its excess is radiated). The CMM problems posed at the beginning have been solved.