Open AccessMolecular dynamics simulations of dipolar dusty plasmas
Author(s) -
J. E. Hammerberg,
Brad Lee Holian,
Michael S. Murillo,
D. Winske
Publication year - 1998
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Reports
DOI - 10.2172/307953
Subject(s) - dipole , molecular dynamics , debye , polarization (electrochemistry) , physics , ion , plasma , dynamics (music) , crystal (programming language) , dusty plasma , condensed matter physics , molecular physics , chemistry , quantum mechanics , computer science , programming language , acoustics
The authors use molecular dynamics (MD) simulation methods to investigate dusty plasma crystal structure in an external potential, with the grains subject to both a spherically symmetric Debye-Hueckel potential and a cylindrically symmetric dipole interaction. The dipole contribution models the experimentally important effects of ion flow or intrinsic grain polarization. They find that the addition of a small dipole term changes the crystal structure from bct to one in which the grains are aligned vertically, consistent with experiments as well as recent theoretical calculations