Coulomb Clusters in Dusty Plasmas: Rotation and Stability
- School of Physics, University of Sydney, NSW 2006 (Australia)
Rotation and stability of dust clusters with different numbers (2 to 12) of micron-sized particles levitated in a horizontal plane was studied experimentally in inductively coupled magnetised dusty plasma. It was found that magnetic field has an influence on the cluster radius and its configuration producing a change in the confinement potential profile in plasma. In the experiment, dust particles have been confined over a flat unbiased electrode using magnetic field only. It was found that the fluctuating motion of the particles was dominated by its azimuthal component which was 2-12 times larger than radial component. It was also observed that the number of particles in a cluster strongly influenced the cluster instability. The reason behind certain cluster structures being more unstable than others was likely to be due to their number of possible metastable states.
- OSTI ID:
- 20726743
- Journal Information:
- AIP Conference Proceedings, Vol. 799, Issue 1; Conference: 4. international conference on the physics of dusty plasmas, Orleans (France), 13-17 Jun 2005; Other Information: DOI: 10.1063/1.2134596; (c) 2005 American Institute of Physics; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0094-243X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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