Experimental investigations and theoretical study of the negative differential resistance in a discharge plasma

Summary form only given. Experimental research has shown that, by increasing the voltage applied on a supplementary electrode immersed into plasma, a fireball is generated in front of it at a certain value of the applied voltage. Simultaneously with the fireball emergence, we recorded a negative differential resistance effect in the current-voltage characteristic of the electrode. The dependence of the critical voltage at which the fireball aggregates on the equilibrium density of plasma was experimentally established. A theoretical hydrodynamic model was built assuming that the ionic component of plasma is inertial, the electronic component is non-inertial and that the electrons move on continuous but non-differentiable curve, i.e. on fractal curves. In the framework of this model, the negative differential resistance effect was associated to a bistability.