How spherical plasma crystals form

TL;DR

This paper investigates how spherical plasma crystals form by simulating their dynamics, revealing how interaction types and confinement conditions influence shell formation and crystallization processes.

Contribution

It provides new insights into the formation dynamics of plasma crystals under different interactions and confinement conditions using Langevin dynamics simulations.

Findings

Shell formation starts at the edge in Coulomb systems

Yukawa interactions alter the shell formation trend

External confinement adjustments can control crystallization

Abstract

The correlation buildup and the formation dynamics of the shell structure in a spherically confined one-component plasma are studied. Using Langevin dynamics simulations the relaxation processes and characteristic time scales and their dependence on the pair interaction and dissipation in the plasma are investigated. While in systems with Coulomb interaction (e.g. trapped ions) in a harmonic confinement shell formation starts at the plasma edge and proceeds inward, this trend is significantly weakened for dusty plasmas with Yukawa interaction. With a suitable change of the confinement conditions the crystallization scenario can be externally controlled.