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Content archived on 2022-12-23

Ordered structures and coulomb crystallisation in dusty plasmas

Objective

Macroscopic particles immersed in plasma open a unique possibility to investigate experimentally and theoretically the formation of ordered and unordered Coulomb systems and their transition from gas-like via liquid to solid states. The project aims at the study of the structure, the dynamics and the phase transitions in dusty and Coulomb systems. A deep understanding of the strong coupling of the dust particles and on the self-organisation processes in dusty plasmas are a necessary prerequisite for developing reliable models in the numerous fields of applications ranging from technological to astrophysical plasmas. Therefore dusty plasma have attracted great interest to a broad research community.

This project will involve the investigation of the main principles of "plasma crystal" formation, instability and phase transition; basic processes in dusty plasmas like particle charging, particle interaction potentials, transport and collective phenomena; the dust particle transport and the evolution of "voids" in processing plasmas; the formation of ordered structures in space dust-molecular clouds initiated by shock waves and gravitational instabilities in the dusty plasmas of protoplanetary accretion disks.

In this project new sophisticated models of solid-liquid phase transition and structural transitions in low-dimensional Coulomb crystal systems, as well as new criteria and approaches for the determination of phase diagrams will be obtained. The stability of the crystal and influence of defects on the melting process will be examined. The many-body particle-particle and particle-ion problem will be reduced to an effective particle-particle interaction. This new approach will allow computing self-consistently the particle charging rate and transport in plasma-chemical reactions. All these findings will improve the knowledge of the basic properties of dusty plasmas and will lead to the development of reliable models for the application to technological, astrophysical and geophysical situations.
The problems will be solved by joint experimental, theoretical and numerical studies. This project unites different groups of complementary experience in plasma physics, phase transitions and condensed matter theory. The project also gains from previous fruitful and stimulating co operations between these groups.

Call for proposal

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Funding Scheme

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Coordinator

Christian-Albrechts-Universitat Kiel
EU contribution
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Address
Olshausenstra?e 40-60
24098 Kiel
Germany

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Total cost
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Participants (4)