Deutsch hypothesis revisited

A universal law governing the distribution of the corona-originated unipolar ion flow orthogonal to the drift direction has been discovered and successfully adopted in conjunction with the Deutsch hypothesis (which applies longitudinally to the drift). Once virtually transferred to the emitting surface, the above supplementary law assumes the character of boundary condition for the field calculation, irrespective of the physical details of ion injection. Therefore, the previously debated problem of prescribing, for computational requirements, arbitrary emission laws is circumvented. Special experimental observations, suitably integrated with those reported elsewhere, offer convincing arguments to sustain the complementary role assumed by the above condition.