Experimental Procedure and Its Influence on the Value of α in the Vacuum Breakdown Equation V = Cxα

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Abstract
From the results published by previous investigators using uniform or nearly uniform macroscopic fields, the value of α in the equation V = Cxα has been shown to range over the values 0.1 to 1.1. In general, the highest values of α were observed at the smallest gaps of an experimental range. The present experiments demonstrate two causes of the variations in the value of α. The first arises from the discharges of an investigation which are shown to produce effects which make the experimental procedure an important cause of the high values of α; and the second from spark conditioning at constant gap. This is shown to produce a state such that a discontinuity in the value of α occurs at the chosen gap. Some consequences of the α-variations are discussed in relation to interpretation of results.