Correlation and Spectrum of Dust Acoustic Waves in a Plasma Under Microgravity Conditions

POSTER

Abstract

Dust acoustic waves under microgravity conditions were investigated in an experiment using the European Space Agency's facility PK-4 on the International Space Station. A dust cloud was confined in a neon plasma powered by a radio-frequency coil. Using video cameras, waves were observed to be spontaneously excited. The density fluctuations associated with the waves were characterized by calculating a microscopic particle density. The fluctuation spectrum indicates the emergence of collective modes in a broad range of wave numbers. The persistence of the coherence of the modes was characterized by density correlation functions. An experimental measurement of the wave's dispersion relation was also obtained.

*All authors acknowledge the joint ESA/Roscosmos “Experiment Plasmakristall-4” onboard the International Space Station. Work was partially supported by DLR Grant Nos. 50WM1441 and 50WM1742. Work at Iowa was supported by NASA-JPL subcontracts 1573629 and 1579454, and NSF Award No. 1740379.

Authors

  • John Goree

    • Univ. of Iowa
    • Univ of Iowa
    • The University of Iowa

  • Bin Liu

    • The University of Iowa

  • Mikhail Pustylnik

    • Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt, Wessling, Germany

  • Hubertus Thomas

    • Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt, Wessling, Germany

  • Vladimir Fortov

    • Joint Institute for High Temperatures of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia

  • Andrey Lipaev

    • Joint Institute for High Temperatures of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia

  • Alexander Usachev

    • Joint Institute for High Temperatures of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia

  • Vladimir Molotkov

    • Joint Institute for High Temperatures of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia

  • Oleg Petrov

    • Joint Institute for High Temperatures of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia

  • Markus Thoma

    • Justus-Liebig-Universität Giessen, Giessen, Germany