A study of DC electrical breakdown in liquid helium through analysis of the empirical breakdown field distributions

We report results from a study on electrical breakdown in liquid helium using near-uniform-field stainless steel electrodes with stressed area of $\sim$0.725 cm$^2$. The distribution the field is obtained for temperatures between 1.7 K and 4.0 K, pressures saturated vapor pressure 626 Torr, different surface polishes. A data-based approach determining electrode-surface-area scaling presented. dependence probability strength as extracted data used to show that phenomenon closely correlated Fowler-Nordheim emission asperities cathode. this analysis provides an explanation supposed electrode gap-size effect also allows determination breakdown-field arbitrary shaped electrodes. Most importantly, method presented work can be extended other noble liquids explore dependencies those media.