Development of nonlinearity in a growing self-excited dust-density wave

Abstract

The development of nonlinearity is observed in a naturally occurring planar dust-density wave. As it propagates through a dusty plasma, the wave grows and harmonics are generated. The amplitudes, wave numbers, and growth rates are measured for the fundamental and its harmonics. The energy in the harmonic modes exhibits a strong exponential increase with diminishing gas pressure, until it levels off at lower gas pressures. The wave numbers and growth rates for the harmonics are near integer multiples of those for the fundamental.

Melting scenarios for three-dimensional dusty plasma clusters

“…There a reduced pressure leads to a reduction of damping, which favors the instability. In larger 3D clouds a reduced gas pressure has been found to drive nonlinear dust acoustic waves [40][41][42][43].…”

Time-resolved measurement of global synchronization in the dust acoustic wave

“…In the laboratory setting, the majority of the dust acoustic waves that are observed are nonlinear, and, in recent years, there has been a great deal of interest in studying the nonlinear properties of this wave mode [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26]. Further, the nonlinear nature of the dust acoustic waves that are typically observed in the laboratory facilitates the experimental study of the nonlinear process of synchronization [27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34].…”

Stereoscopy of dust density waves under microgravity: Velocity distributions and phase-resolved single-particle analysis

“…13 The increase of the amplitudes with height is quite linear and has correspondingly been fitted with AðzÞ ¼ 0:059 Á zðmmÞ þ 0:25 mm. In laboratory experiments, 16 the amplitude growth was found to be exponential. The underlying mechanism proposed by Flanagan and Goree 16 is the continuous free energy input from the ion stream to the dust particles.…”