Two-dimensional dusty plasma crystals and liquids

Abstract

Strongly coupled plasmas - in which the average potential energy per particle dominates over the average kinetic energy - appear in a wide variety of physical systems. Among these systems, dust plasma crystals and liquids realized in low-pressure gas discharges by dispersing mesoscopic grains into the plasma have attracted a lot of attention during the past years. We describe the experimental realization of the quasi-two-dimensional dust system, summarize the basics of the computer simulation and theoretical approaches capable of their description in the liquid and solid phases. We discuss the properties of the dynamical density and current correlation spectra, generated by molecular dynamics simulations, and address the issues associated with the existence of different phases and transport coefficients (e.g. superdiffusive behavior) in the low-dimensional systems under study. © 2009 IOP Publishing Ltd.