Extracting Forces from Noisy Dynamics in Dusty Plasmas

Extracting environmental forces from noisy data is a common yet challenging task in complex physical systems. Machine learning represents a robust approach to this problem, yet is mostly tested on simulated data with known parameters. Here we use supervised machine learning to extract the electrostatic, hydrodynamic, and stochastic forces acting on micron-sized charged particles levitated in an argon plasma. Trained on simulated particle trajectories using more than 100 dynamical and statistical features, the model predicts system parameters with 50\% better accuracy than conventional methods, and provides non-contact measurements of the particle charge and Debye length.