Experimental Demonstration of Plasma-Drag Acceleration of a Dust Cloud to Hypervelocities

Journal Article · Fri Apr 18 00:00:00 EDT 2008 · Physical Review Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PHYSREVLETT.100.155002· OSTI ID:21123879

Ticos, C M; Zhehui, Wang; Wurden, G A; Kline, J L; Montgomery, D S; Dorf, L A ^[1]; Shukla, P K ^[2]

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1. Los Alamos National Laboratory, Plasma Physics Group P-24, Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545 (United States)
2. Institut fuer Teoretische Physik IV, Fakueltat fuer Physik und Astronomie, Ruhr-Universtaet Bochum, D-44780 Bochum (Germany)

Simultaneous acceleration of hundreds of dust particles to hypervelocities by collimated plasma flows ejected from a coaxial gun is demonstrated. Graphite and diamond grains with radii between 5 and 30 {mu}m, and flying at speeds up to 3.7 km/s, have been recorded with a high-speed camera. The observations agree well with a model for plasma-drag acceleration of microparticles much larger than the plasma screening length.

• OSTI ID: 21123879
• Journal Information: Physical Review Letters, Vol. 100, Issue 15; Other Information: DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.100.155002; (c) 2008 The American Physical Society; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0031-9007
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
ACCELERATION
DIAMONDS
DRAG
DUSTS
GRAPHITE
PLASMA