Mechanism of a stepped leader in a negative lightning

The mechanism of a stepped leader not related to processes in the cloud is considered. The average leader speed is determined by the formation of a channel due to heating of one of the space stems in the electric field of the streamer corona. If the drift speed of the electrons in the formed channel is higher than the leader propagation speed, a drift wave arises which catches up with the boundary of the streamer zone. The electric field growth leads to a formation of the stepped leader. The mechanism is realized in case of a negative leader. Realism of this scenario has been checked by numerical simulations. For the negative leader the formation of the step with parameters close to those for natural leaders has been obtained. The estimated maximum speed of the electron drift at the stage of channel formation, which exceeds the negative leader propagation speed observed in the experiments, counts in favor of the above ideas.