Consequences of an attractive force on collective modes and dust structures in a strongly coupled dusty plasma

TL;DR

This paper investigates how attractive and repulsive forces between charged dust particles influence collective behaviors, phase separation, and structure formation in strongly coupled dusty plasmas using molecular dynamics simulations.

Contribution

It introduces a combined analysis of Debye-Huckel repulsion and overlapping Debye sphere attraction effects on dust plasma dynamics, including instability onset and structure formation.

Findings

Identification of instability in transverse collective modes.

Insights into dust coagulation and agglomeration mechanisms.

Understanding of ordered dust structure formation.

Abstract

We present an investigation of the combined effects of the Debye-Huckel (DH) repulsive and overlaping Debye spheres (ODS) attractive interaction potentials around charged dust particles on collective modes, phase separation and ordered dust structures in a strongly coupled dusty plasma. We obtain static and dynamical information via Molecular Dynamics simulations in the liquid and crystallized phases and identify the onset of an instability in the transverse collective mode, by using (zero-temperature) lattice summation method. The present results are useful for understanding the origin of coagulation/agglomeration of charged dust particles and the formation of ordered dust structures in low-temperature laboratory and space dusty plasmas.