Comparison of equilibrium ohmic and nonequilibrium swarm models for monitoring conduction electron evolution in high‐altitude EMP calculations

Atmospheric electromagnetic pulse (EMP) events are important physical phenomena that occur through both man‐made and natural processes. Radiation‐induced currents and voltages in EMP can couple with electrical systems, such as those found in satellites, and cause significant damage. Due to the disruptive nature of EMP, it is important to accurately predict EMP evolution and propagation with computational models. CHAP‐LA ( C ompton H igh A ltitude P ulse‐ L os A lamos) is a state‐of‐the‐art EMP code that solves Maxwell′ s equations for gamma source‐induced electromagnetic fields in the atmosphere. In EMP, low‐energy, conduction electrons constitute a conduction current that limits the EMP by opposing the Compton current. CHAP‐LA calculates the conduction current using an equilibrium ohmic model. The equilibrium model works well at low altitudes, where the electron energy equilibration time is short compared to the rise time or duration of the EMP. At high altitudes, the equilibration time increases beyond the EMP rise time and the predicted equilibrium ionization rate becomes very large. The ohmic model predicts an unphysically large production of conduction electrons which prematurely and abruptly shorts the EMP in the simulation code. An electron swarm model, which implicitly accounts for the time evolution of the conduction electron energy distribution, can be used to overcome the limitations exhibited by the equilibrium ohmic model. We have developed and validated an electron swarm model previously in Pusateri et al. (2015). Here we demonstrate EMP damping behavior caused by the ohmic model at high altitudes and show improvements on high‐altitude, upward EMP modeling obtained by integrating a swarm model into CHAP‐LA.