Transition to chaos in a driven dusty plasma

Journal Article · Fri Jan 15 04:00:00 EST 2010 · Physics of Plasmas

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.3298731· OSTI ID:21344678

Sheridan, T E; Theisen, W L ^[1]

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1. Department of Physics and Astronomy, Ohio Northern University, Ada, Ohio 45810 (United States)

Dynamical chaos has previously been observed experimentally in a driven dusty plasma with three particles [T. E. Sheridan, Phys. Plasmas 12, 080701 (2005)]. In the present work, the transition to chaos in this system is studied as a function of the amplitude of a periodic driving force for two different driving frequencies f{sub d}. It is found that the system follows a quasiperiodic route to chaos. The dusty plasma's center-of-mass modes are driven by the first harmonic of f{sub d} and lock to the driving force for small driving amplitudes. The breathing mode is driven by the second harmonic of f{sub d} and shows asymmetric spectral features indicating quasiperiodic dynamics for intermediate driving amplitudes. For large driving forces both the center-of-mass and breathing modes are entrained and a region of low-dimensional chaotic dynamics due to a resonance overlap is observed. In the chaotic regime the correlation dimension and Lyapunov exponent are found to increase with the driving force.

• OSTI ID: 21344678
• Journal Information: Physics of Plasmas, Journal Name: Physics of Plasmas Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 17; ISSN PHPAEN; ISSN 1070-664X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY
CALCULATION METHODS
CENTER-OF-MASS SYSTEM
CHAOS THEORY
DUSTS
INSTABILITY
LYAPUNOV METHOD
MATHEMATICS
PLASMA
PLASMA INSTABILITY