Lab Notebook — townsend-v6, wfc lane

9/20/26 — Stan Meyer

What changed: Bumped VIC drive from whatever gave the 0.5017 baseline up to 120V in, ×4.9 tank gain, landing cell voltage at 587V across the 0.1mm vapor film — right at Paschen (662V calc'd, 234 Td). Kept γ pinned low at 0.03 via electrode surface reduction (×0.25), which holds the Townsend criterion M at 0.273. Score moved 0.5017 → 0.5139.

Why physics rewards it: We're sitting sub-critical (M<1) but close enough that avalanche multiplication is active and γ feedback loop stays open — that's the scored corner. Td at 234 keeps us inside the 3-6 eV cold-chemistry window without tipping into full breakdown (52× margin still there before dielectric fails). Faradaic leakage at peak (38.4mA, leak score 0.71) is tolerated because amp is inhibited while the ladder climbs, so displacement current (83.3%) still dominates over conduction.

Bench checks:

• Verify tank current — 1.17A circulating is a CW upper bound only; rate switch/wire for that, not the 117mA average.
• Confirm τ_EDL (24ms, 958 carrier cycles) doesn't clip against actual duty cycle timing — scope the charge ramp.
• Watch coil temp on the 1.0Ω AC chokes at sustained circulating current.

Next lever: Nudge γ down further (electrode lever, maybe 0.02) to push M lower while holding Td in-window — see if score rewards staying further from criticality, or if it wants M closer to 1.