Describing the ion wake formation and electric potential in the vicinity of multiple charged dust grains

Charged dust grains in a complex plasma are known to disturb the local environment through interactions with charged species in the plasma. This can lead to the formation of a region of enhanced ion density (an ion wake) which significantly modifies the form of the local electric potential. Under controlled conditions, dust grains have been experimentally observed to self-organize into interesting shapes, including single chains, zigzags, and twisted helices. Commonly used electric potential forms have been derived for regions far from isolated dust grains, but all fail to adequately describe the complex potential structure surrounding multiple charged dust grains as enhancements in the local ion density are not considered. The present study employs DRIAD, a GPU-accelerated molecular dynamics simulation, to model the ion flow and quantify the changes to the electric potential surrounding multiple charged dust grains. The charge on dust grains in the simulations influences the motions of the ions, and analysis of the highly resolved local ion number density provides the basis for a detailed description of the resulting electric potential.