Imposed ordered structure in magnetized discharge

First experimental findings obtained with the new Magnetized Dusty Plasma Experiment (MDPX at Auburn University) include the formation of ordered structures in high vertical magnetic fields (>1 T) imposed by the wire-grid upper horizontal electrode and visualized by micrometer dust particles levitating on top of the lower flat electrode sheath of a capacitively coupled RF discharge [E. Thomas Jr., Physics of Plasmas 23, 055701 (2016)]. Simple arguments based on charged particles being confined to helical trajectories along the magnetic field lines are not sufficient because all relevant collision processes have mean free paths well shorter than the distance between the structured electrode and the lower electrode sheath. We apply our newly implemented 2.5 dimensional GPU accelerated particle in cell (PIC) discharge simulation both for cylindrical geometry to compute global discharge parameters and with cartesian symmetry for the determination of local plasma parameters including the charging and force balance computation of the dust particles with high resolution. The PIC simulations will reveal the microscopic details of how the spatial structure of the upper electrode can migrate through the bulk plasma and influence the structure of the lower sheath region.