Structural transitions of finite spherical Yukawa crystals
Abstract
Small three-dimensional strongly coupled clusters of charged particles in a spherical confinement potential arrange themselves in nested concentric shells. If the particles are immersed into a background plasma the interaction is screened. The cluster shell configuration is known to be sensitive to the screening strength. With increased screening an increased population of the inner shell(s) is observed. Here, we present a detailed analysis of the ground state shell configurations and configuration changes in a wide range of screening parameters for clusters with particle numbers in the range of 11 to 60. We report three types of anomalous behaviors which are observed upon increase of screening, at fixed or for an increase of at fixed screening. The results are obtained by means of extensive first principle molecular dynamics simulations.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.0805.4617,
title = {Structural transitions of finite spherical Yukawa crystals},
author = {H. Baumgartner and D. Asmus and V. Golubnychiy and P. Ludwig and H. Kählert and M. Bonitz},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0805.4617},
year = {2009}
}