Plasma Heating due to Cyclic Diffusion across a Separatrix.

We observe plasma heating due to collisional diffusion across a separatrix when a magnesium ion column in a Penning-Malmberg trap is cyclically pushed back and forth across a partial trapping barrier. The barrier is an externally applied axisymmetric "squeeze" potential, which creates a velocity separatrix between trapped and passing particles. Weak ion-ion collisions then cause separatrix crossings, leading to irreversible heating. The heating rate scales as the square root of the oscillation rate times the collision frequency and thus can be dominant for low-collisionality plasmas. The particle velocity distribution function is measured with coherent laser induced fluorescence and shows passing and trapped particles having an out-of-phase response to the forced plasma oscillations.

Trapped Particle Effects in the Parametric Instability of Near-Acoustic Plasma Waves.

Quantitative experiments on the parametric decay instability of near-acoustic plasma waves provide strong evidence that trapped particles reduce the instability threshold below fluid models. At low temperatures, the broad characteristics of the parametric instability are determined by the frequency detuning of the pump and daughter wave, and the wave-wave coupling strength, surprisingly consistent with cold fluid, three-wave theories. However, at higher temperatures, trapped particle effects dominate, and the pump wave becomes unstable at half the threshold pump wave amplitude with similar exponential growth rates as for a cold plasma.

First Test of Long-Range Collisional Drag via Plasma Wave Damping.

This paper presents the first experimental confirmation of a new theory predicting enhanced drag due to long-range collisions in a magnetized plasma. The experiments measure damping of Langmuir waves in a multispecies pure ion plasma, which is dominated by interspecies collisional drag in certain regimes. The measured damping rates in these regimes exceed classical predictions of collisional drag damping by as much as an order of magnitude, but agree with the new theory.

Evolution of a Vortex in a Strain Flow.

Experiments and vortex-in-cell simulations are used to study an initially axisymmetric, spatially distributed vortex subject to an externally imposed strain flow. The experiments use a magnetized pure electron plasma to model an inviscid two-dimensional fluid. The results are compared to a theory assuming an elliptical region of constant vorticity. For relatively flat vorticity profiles, the dynamics and stability threshold are in close quantitative agreement with the theory. Physics beyond the constant-vorticity model, such as vortex stripping, is investigated by studying the behavior of nonflat vorticity profiles.

Compressional and shear wakes in a two-dimensional dusty plasma crystal.

Wakes composed of compressional and shear waves were studied experimentally in a two-dimensional screened-Coulomb crystal. Highly charged microspheres suspended in a plasma settled in a horizontal monolayer and arranged in a triangular lattice with a repulsive interparticle potential. Wakes were excited by a moving spot of Ar+ laser light. Depending on the laser spot speed, compressional waves formed a Mach cone and multiple lateral or transverse wakes, similar to ship wakes on the water surface, due to a combination of acoustic and dispersive properties. Shear waves, however, formed only a Mach cone, due to their nearly acoustic, i.e., dispersionless character. The experimental results show agreement with a recently developed theory and with molecular dynamics simulations, which assume a binary Yukawa interparticle potential. A generally useful method is presented for calculating the real part of the dispersion relation of the compressional waves based on the analysis of the spatial structure of a phonon wake. Fitting the resulting dispersion relation provides an independent measure of the interparticle potential, parametrized by the screening parameter kappa and particle charge Q.

Wave-particle interactions in electron acoustic waves in pure ion plasmas.

Electron acoustic waves (EAW) with a phase velocity less than twice the plasma thermal velocity are observed on pure ion plasma columns. At low excitation amplitudes, the EAW frequencies agree with theory, but at moderate excitation the EAW is more frequency variable than typical Langmuir waves, and at large excitations resonance is observed over a broad range. Laser induced fluorescence measurements of the wave-coherent ion velocity distribution show phase reversals and wave-particle trapping plateaus at +/-vph, as expected, and corroborate the unusual role of kinetic pressure in the EAW.

Measurement of correlation-enhanced collision rates.

We measure the perpendicular-to-parallel collision rate nu perpendicular parallel in laser-cooled magnetized ion plasmas, spanning the uncorrelated to correlated regimes. In correlated regimes, we measure collision rates consistent with the "Salpeter correlation enhancement" of roughly exp(Gamma), for correlation parameters Gamma less, similar 4. This enhancement also applies to fusion in dense plasmas such as stars.

Rapid heating of a strongly coupled plasma near the solid-liquid phase transition.

Between 10(4) and 10(6) 9Be+ ions were trapped in a Penning trap and laser cooled to approximately 1 mK, where they formed a crystalline plasma. We measured the ion temperature as a function of time after turning off the laser cooling and observed a rapid temperature increase as the plasma underwent the solid-liquid phase transition at T approximately 10 mK (Gamma approximately 170). We present evidence that this rapid heating is due to a sudden release of energy from weakly cooled degrees of freedom involving the cyclotron motion of trapped impurity ions. This equilibration of cyclotron motion with motion parallel to the magnetic field is more than 10 orders of magnitude faster than that predicted by currently available theory, which is valid only in the absence of correlations (Gamma<<1).

Laser-generated waves and wakes in rotating ion crystals.

Locally excited plasma waves are generated in a Coulomb crystal by "pushing" with radiation pressure on a rotating cloud of laser-cooled 9Be+ ions. The waves form a stationary wake that is directly imaged through the dependence of the ion fluorescence on Doppler shifts, and theoretical calculations in a slab geometry are shown to accurately reproduce these images. The technique demonstrates a new method of exciting and studying waves in cold ion clouds.

Thermally excited modes in a pure electron plasma.

Thermally excited plasma modes are observed in near-thermal-equilibrium pure electron plasmas over a temperature range of 0.05