Quadrilateral Particle Arrangement within Shocks in a Two-Dimensional Dusty Plasma
Abstract
The microscopic structure within a two-dimensional shock was studied using data from a dusty plasma experiment. A single layer of charged microparticles, levitated in a glow-discharge plasma, was perturbed by an electrically floating wire that was moved at a steady supersonic speed to excite a compressional shock. A rearrangement of particles was observed, from a hexagonal lattice in the preshock into a quadrilateral microstructure within the shock. This quadrilateral structure would not be stable in a monolayer of identical repulsive particles, under equilibrium conditions. Glaser-Clark polygon analysis of the microstructure helped in identifying quadrilaterals. Voronoi analysis was used to characterize the defect fraction behind the shock, as an indication of shock-induced melting.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2404.03078,
title = {Quadrilateral Particle Arrangement within Shocks in a Two-Dimensional Dusty Plasma},
author = {Anton Kananovich and J. Goree},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2404.03078},
year = {2024}
}