Influence of temporal variations in plasma conditions on the electric potential near self-organized dust chains

Journal Article · 16 February 2022 · Physics of Plasmas

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0075261 · OSTI ID:1870167

Vermillion, Katrina  ^[1]; Sanford, Dustin ^[2]; Matthews, Lorin  ^[2]; Hartmann, Peter  ^[3]; Rosenberg, Marlene ^[4]; Kostadinova, Evdokiya  ^[5]; Carmona-Reyes, Jorge  ^[2]; Hyde, Truell  ^[2]; Lipaev, Andrey M. ^[6]; Usachev, Alexandr D. ^[6]; Zobnin, Andrey V. ^[6]; Petrov, Oleg F.  ^[7]; Thoma, Markus H.  ^[8]; Pustylnik, Mikhail Y. ^[9]; Thomas, Hubertus M.  ^[9]; Ovchinin, Alexey ^[10]

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1. Baylor Univ., Waco, TX (United States); Baylor University
2. Baylor Univ., Waco, TX (United States)
3. Baylor Univ., Waco, TX (United States); Wigner Research Centre for Physics, Budapest (Hungary)
4. Univ. of California at San Diego, La Jolla, CA (United States)
5. Baylor Univ., Waco, TX (United States); Auburn Univ., AL (United States)
6. Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow (Russia)
7. Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow (Russia); Moscow Inst. of Physics and Technology (Russia)
8. Justus-Liebig-Univ. Giessen (Germany)
9. Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR), Cologne (Germany)
10. Gagarin Research and Test Cosmonaut Training Center, Moscow (Russia)

Self-organization of dust grains into stable filamentary dust structures (or “chains”) largely depends on dynamic interactions between individual charged dust grains and complex electric potential arising from the distribution of charges within a local plasma environment. Recent studies have shown that the positive column of the gas discharge plasma in the Plasmakristall-4 (PK-4) experiment at the International Space Station supports the presence of fast-moving ionization waves, which lead to variations of plasma parameters by up to an order of magnitude from the average background values. The highly variable environment resulting from ionization waves may have interesting implications for the dynamics and self-organization of dust particles, particularly concerning the formation and stability of dust chains. Here, we investigate the electric potential surrounding dust chains in the PK-4 experiment by employing a molecular dynamics model of the dust and ions with boundary conditions supplied by a particle-in-cell with Monte Carlo collision simulation of the ionization waves. The model is used to examine the effects of the plasma conditions within different regions of the ionization wave and compare the resulting dust structure to that obtained by employing the time-averaged plasma conditions. Here, the comparison between simulated dust chains and experimental data from the PK-4 experiment shows that the time-averaged plasma conditions do not accurately reproduce observed results for dust behavior, indicating that more careful treatment of plasma conditions in the presence of ionization waves is required. It is further shown that commonly used analytic forms of the electric potential do not accurately describe the electric potential near charged dust grains under these plasma conditions.

• Research Organization: Baylor Univ., Waco, TX (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Science (SC), Fusion Energy Sciences (FES); NSF; National Office for Research, Development, and Innovation of Hungary (NKFIH); Russian Science Foundation
• Grant/Contract Number: SC0021334
• OSTI ID: 1870167
• Journal Information: Physics of Plasmas, Journal Name: Physics of Plasmas Journal Issue: 2 Vol. 29; ISSN 1070-664X
• Publisher: American Institute of Physics (AIP)Copyright Statement
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English