%0 Journal Article %T Plasma dynamics of a laser filamentation-guided spark %+ ONERA - The French Aerospace Lab [Palaiseau] %+ Interaction Laser-Matière (ILM) %+ Laboratoire de Physique des Plasmas (LPP) %A Point, Guillaume %A Arantchouk, Léonid %A Carbonnel, Jérôme %A Mysyrowicz, André %A Houard, Aurélien %< avec comité de lecture %@ 1070-664X %J Physics of Plasmas %I American Institute of Physics %V 23 %N 9 %P 093505 %8 2016 %D 2016 %R 10.1063/1.4962517 %K laser %K spark %K discharge %K nonlinear optics %K filamentation %K plasma %Z Physics [physics]/Physics [physics]/Optics [physics.optics] %Z Physics [physics]/Physics [physics]/Plasma Physics [physics.plasm-ph]Journal articles %X We investigate experimentally the plasma dynamics of a centimeter-scale, laser filamentation-guided spark discharge. Using electrical and optical diagnostics to study monopolar discharges with varying current pulses we show that plasma decay is dominated by free electron recombination if the current decay time is shorter than the recombination characteristic time. In the opposite case, the plasma electron density closely follows the current evolution. We demonstrate that this criterion holds true in the case of damped AC sparks, and that alternative current is the best option to achieve a long plasma lifetime for a given peak current. %G English %2 https://hal-ensta-paris.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01385550/document %2 https://hal-ensta-paris.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01385550/file/1608.07677v1.pdf %L hal-01385550 %U https://hal-ensta-paris.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01385550 %~ OBSPM %~ X %~ UPMC %~ ENSTA %~ ONERA %~ CNRS %~ UNIV-PSUD %~ X-LPTP %~ X-LOA %~ X-DEP %~ X-DEP-PHYS %~ ENSTA_LOA %~ PSL %~ ONERA-SACLAY %~ UNIV-PARIS-SACLAY %~ UNIV-PSUD-SACLAY %~ X-SACLAY %~ ENSTA-SACLAY %~ UPMC_POLE_2 %~ SORBONNE-UNIVERSITE %~ SU-SCIENCES %~ X-LPP %~ LABORATOIRE-DE-PHYSIQUE-DES-PLASMAS-LPP %~ OBSPM-PSL %~ SU-TI %~ INSTITUT-SCIENCES-LUMIERE %~ COMUE-UPSACLAY %~ ALLIANCE-SU