Simulating gas-discharge processes at a single cold microscopic point

The development of ionization avalanches in nitrogen at atmospheric pressure near a single cold microscopic point on a cathode surface has been simulated under the conditions of E/P a parts per thousand << 1 kV/(cm Torr), where E is the electric field strength and P is the gas pressure. It is established that a layer of dense gas-discharge plasma with a density of similar to 10(16) cm(-3) is formed within a period of similar to 1 ps as a result of the gas ionization by electrons emitted from the cathode. The current of fast electrons, which appears due to gas ionization is more than ten times greater than the field emission current and can reach I similar to 1 A for one microscopic point.