This paper investigates the external circuit effect in corona discharge by means of numerical simulation, while the effect is usually disregarded in previous plasma simulations. A general numerical solution method of serial external circuit, which can compute surface charges on any shape of electrodes adaptively and solve electrode potential and circuit current simultaneously, is developed to support the investigation, due to lack of theoretical solution in irregular electrode systems. Brief description and validation of the scheme are presented in section 2. In general, the accuracy of numerical solution improves with mesh refinement in orthogonal mesh, due to stair step approximation. Simulations are performed in our self-developed 3D PIC-MCC (particle-in-cell, Monte Carlo collision) code with photoionization and external circuit. The simulation model including recently developed photoionization model is described briefly in section 3. Then the simulation results in a needle-plate electrode in air, such as spatiotemporal evolution of corona discharge and waveforms of electrode voltage and circuit current, are presented. Physical mechanisms of formation of branched corona discharge and self-consistent adjustment of electrode voltage and circuit current are discussed. The waveforms of voltage and current in this simulation are generally consistent with experimental result. The external circuit has negative feedback effect on the discharge, and can adjusts electrode voltage self-consistently. The application of external circuit improves the applicability of particle simulation method to the simulation of discharge phenomenon in actual devices.
