Slow Dynamics in a Quasi-Two-Dimensional Binary Complex Plasma.

Slow dynamics in an amorphous quasi-two-dimensional complex plasma, comprised of microparticles of two different sizes, was studied experimentally. The motion of individual particles was observed using video microscopy, and the self-part of the intermediate scattering function as well as the mean-squared particle displacement was calculated. The long-time structural relaxation reveals the characteristic behavior near the glass transition. Our results suggest that binary complex plasmas can be an excellent model system to study slow dynamics in classical supercooled fluids.

Tracking and Linking of Microparticle Trajectories During Mode-Coupling Induced Melting in a Two-Dimensional Complex Plasma Crystal.

In this article, a strategy to track microparticles and link their trajectories adapted to the study of the melting of a quasi two-dimensional complex plasma crystal induced by the mode-coupling instability is presented. Because of the three-dimensional nature of the microparticle motions and the inhomogeneities of the illuminating laser light sheet, the scattered light intensity can change significantly between two frames, making the detection of the microparticles and the linking of their trajectories quite challenging. Thanks to a two-pass noise removal process based on Gaussian blurring of the original frames using two different kernel widths, the signal-to-noise ratio was increased to a level that allowed a better intensity thresholding of different regions of the images and, therefore, the tracking of the poorly illuminated microparticles. Then, by predicting the positions of the microparticles based on their previous positions, long particle trajectories could be reconstructed, allowing accurate measurement of the evolution of the microparticle energies and the evolution of the monolayer properties.

Channeling of particles and associated anomalous transport in a two-dimensional complex plasma crystal.

Implications of the recently discovered effect of channeling of upstream extra particles for transport phenomena in a two-dimensional plasma crystal are discussed. Upstream particles levitated above the lattice layer and tended to move between the rows of lattice particles. An example of heat transport is considered, where upstream particles act as moving heat sources, which may lead to anomalous heat transport. The average channeling length observed was 15-20 interparticle distances. Other features of the channeling process are also reported.

Wakes in inhomogeneous plasmas.

The Debye shielding of a charge immersed in a flowing plasma is an old classic problem. It has been given renewed attention in the last two decades in view of experiments with complex plasmas, where charged dust particles are often levitated in a region with strong ion flow. Efforts to describe the shielding of the dust particles in such conditions have been focused on the homogeneous plasma approximation, which ignores the substantial inhomogeneity of the levitation region. We address the role of the plasma inhomogeneity by rigorously calculating the point charge potential in the collisionless Bohm sheath. We demonstrate that the inhomogeneity can dramatically modify the wake, making it nonoscillatory and weaker.