Ute Ebert

Ute M. Ebert is a German physicist known for her research on plasma physics and electric discharge in gases.

[1][2] Ebert's doctoral dissertation, Diffusion langer Polymerketten in einem eingefrorenen Zufallsmedium: eine Renormierungsgruppenanalyse, concerned the use of renormalization to analyze the diffusion of polymers;[3] she also studied phytoplankton dynamics before shifting to her present interest in gas discharges.

[2] Ebert's groups currently work on projects on lightning physics, high voltage technology in the context of electricity nets, and applications of pulsed plasmas in agriculture and combustion engines.

For example, in her joint work with numerical analysists she managed to mimic lightning discharges to a very detailed level.

She and her co-authors developed models describing how lightning starts in thunder clouds, namely by an interaction between sharp-edged hail and cosmic particles.

Ebert has contributed a lot to the modelling of lightning discharges. 'Normal' lightning that can be seen from the earth arises under clouds in the troposphere. Discharges that happen at higher altitude are simpler to model and are therefore very useful to better understand lightning.
Long exposure photograph of corona discharge on an insulator string of a 500 kV overhead power line. This type of power loss was the research subject in the project 'Creeping Sparks'