The Geiger discharge revisited Part II. Propagation

A recent treatment of the charge generated in the self-quenching Geiger discharge is applied to a study of the propagation of the discharge. Two possible modes are evaluated: (i) “re-ignition” in which fluctuations are important with the discharge propagating “jerkily” by a series of local near burning-out followed by further avalanche activity further along the wire; (ii) “self-consistent” in which the discharge burns steadily and moves “smoothly” along the wire. The first mode is evaluated, with concordant results, by three different methods which suggest that it may be dominant for low over-voltages with the second mode taking over at higher over-voltages.