Description
The dynamical properties of extended clouds of dust particles in a dusty plasma under the microgravity conditions of parabolic flights is studied. Here, micrometer-sized dust particles are immersed into a gaseous plasma of a capacitively coupled radio-frequency discharge. There the particles become confined in a large extended, nearly force-free dust cloud. The particles are illuminated by lasers and the scattered light is recorded by (high-speed) video cameras. For the dynamical analysis, features of the dust cloud are derived either directly from the image data or from physical data extracted from the dust cloud. From a comparison of different features the cloud dynamics (dust-density waves, void formation, structure formation) is characterized.
Financial support from the German Aerospace Center DLR (Contract No. 50WM2161) is gratefully acknowledged.