What do you mean by the "impedance"? Characteristic impedance for the plasma as an environment for carrying the electromagnetic waves (radio, microwave,...), or an impedance of a discharge lamp viewed as a two terminal "black box"?
Before I was describing the first, because that is the only case, where you may speak about "characteristic impedance of the air".
For the second, the arc could be viewed as a resistance (the area full of free ions) in series with a voltage source (representing the cathode fall voltage). The resistance is not constant, it depend on the ionization level and that depend on what was the current in the history. The charges breed (get multiplied) with higher voltages, but recombine by itself. For stable arc the voltage settles so, the breeding rate is the same as the decay rate. As a result, this balance keeps the arc voltage rather independent on the feed current - if the ionization is lower, the lower conductivity allows for higher voltage, which then causes the breedingto be faster than decay, so the condictivity rises, until it lowers the voltage so, the balanceis recovered. As both the breeding, as well as decay have certainn time constants, the ionization level exhibit some inertia, so with mains frequency the ionization level moreless follows the arc current within the supply AC waveform (so the arc voltage becomes rectangular), with high frequency drive the operating frequency is higher than what the ionization level (so cinductivity) could follow, the arc exhibit rather linear resistance within one period of the supplly current, so with nearly triangular wave of the supply current the voltage is a triangular wave as well... But the resistance settles so, the generated ionization is in average again the same as the decay.
|