| Description: | In this summer student project, we aimed to formulate an algorithm for the automated extraction of physically meaningful lightning structures, which could enable large-scale statistical studies of lightning.
To make this goal possible, we studied a class of mathematical functions called spatio-temporal correlators. While studying the behaviour of one such function called the distance correlator, we simulated small sections of lightning structures called negative leaders as spirals. Surprisingly, using the spirals to simulate such lightning structures proved to be very useful, as they gave out the same physics with respect to these correlators as the real data. We were also able to show that the spatio-temporal correlators were sensitive to the physics within the lightning structures. |
