Simple hexagonal Coulomb crystals have been
observed near a deformed plasma sheath boundary in a dusty plasma.
It seems that particle rows, which are found in the
direction perpendicular to an electrode in the Coulomb crystal, are
formed due to not only Coulomb repulsive forces but also some
attractive forces. In this study, experiments using the deformed
sheath revealed that the rows
were bent along the direction of electric fields and ion flows in a
plasma. The result shows that sheath
structures and shapes affect Coulomb crystal structures in dusty plasmas. In
this paper, the formation of the particle rows are discussed, where balances of forces on
particles in a dusty plasma are taken into account under the
assumption that wake potentials related to ion flows exist in the sheath
region.
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