Nonlinear Motions in Dusty Plasma Crystals, Liquids, and Clusters

Abstract

The dusty plasma with dust particles charged and suspended in the plasma background is a complex open dissipative nonlinear system. Dust Coulomb crystals, liquids and clusters with finite particle numbers can be formed under the strong coupling. The competition between the caged motion from the strong coupling and the thermally induced hopping generates rich microscopic nonlinear motions associated with vortex excitations leading to anomalous diffusion, which can be further enhanced by laser induced shears. The motion becomes anisotropic for particles near the system boundary. At the macroscopic level, the interplay between the dust particle motion, and the charge density and dark space width fluctuations through the ionization instability makes the system exhibit many self-organized spatio-temporal behaviors.