Abstract
A new kind of dusty plasma instability was observed in the joint Russian-European “Plasma Kristall-4” space experiment on board of the International Space Station. An elongated cylindrical dust particle cloud of 0.9 cm diameter with a length of 20 cm was formed in the uniform positive column of a dc discharge operating in a polarity switching mode (dc/ps-mode). The discharge was operated in a glass tube of 3 cm inner diameter with a total length of 85 cm filled by argon at a pressure of 0.5 mbar. The dc/ps discharge was operated at 1 mA with a polarity switching frequency of 500 Hz. During the experiment, all the dust particles vibrated synchronized in the same phase in the direction perpendicular to the tube axis with a frequency of 24 Hz and peak-to-peak amplitude of 0.2 mm. The vibration was attended by discharge glow fluctuation. The nature of the cloud vibration is discussed.
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