DuEl

 

The last twenty years have seen an enormous increase of interest in the field of dusty or complex plasmas, i.e. plasmas including particles of macroscopic size, typically in the 0.01-10 um range, besides the usual electron and ion components. These grains are subject both to gravity and to the acquisition of large numbers of elementary charges, and hence widen the range of space and time scales spanned by the overall plasma dynamics, giving rise to new collective effects. Complex plasmas occur in interplanetary space and have also achieved a decisive importance in technological applications, e.g. nuclear fusion, plasma deposition and etching, micro- and nanostructured materials.

A hot topic in the field of dusty plasma physics is the magnetization of plasma components, possibly including the dust grains, and affecting for instance the dust charging process as well as the grain diffusion and confinement properties. Due to the extremely low charge-to-mass ratio, this condition requires high magnetic fields, which is the reason why only few experiments on magnetized dusty plasmas have been performed or are under development up to now.

One of such experiment is meant to take place in the DuEl (Dust-Electron) device, a modified Penning-Malmberg trap we are presently setting up. A peculiar feature of our experiment will be the confinement of a nonneutral plasma, as common for Penning traps while totally unusual to laboratory experiments on dusty plasmas. The main goal of the experiment is observing how a dust contamination affects the dynamics of a highly-magnetized electron plasma, with an emphasis on the modification of fluid instabilities and of the turbulence properties of the plasma evolution.

The DuEl experiment has been initiated with the approval of the group's proposal 'Nonlinear dynamics of non-neutral complex plasmas' submitted to the Ministry of Education, Universities and Research within the framework of the PRIN 2009 call. The experimental program is complemented by the development of simulation tools (Particle-In-Cell codes) targeted at the specific features of magnetized electron-dust ensembles.

Trap electrode tower

Left: Electrode tower (mock-up assembly). Electrodes are mounted on a four-rod structure and separated by insulating spacers. The rotating dust dispenser electrode is mounted on ball bearings. Top right: fourfold-split electrode assembled with PEEK ring mounts. Bottom right: rotating dust dispenser with ball bearings.



Solenoid as delivered by the company SigmaPhi. A normal-conducting, water-cooled electromegnet, it yields an axial magnetic field up to 0.85 T.

Some references about dusty plasmas

R. L. Merlino and J. A. Goree, Physics Today 57, 32 (2004).

S. V. Vladimirov, K. Ostrikov and A. A. Samarian, “Physics and Applications of Complex Plasmas” (Imperial College Press, London, 2005).

V. Tsytovich, G. Morfill, S. Vladimirov, and H. Thomas, “Elementary Physics of Complex Plasmas” (Springer, New York, 2008).

P. K. Shukla and B. Eliasson, Rev. Mod. Phys. 81, 25 (2009).

G. E. Morfill and A. V. Ivlev, Rev. Mod. Phys. 81, 1353 (2009).

M. Horányi, Annu. Rev. Astron. Astrophys. 34, 383 (1996).

B. Liu and J. Goree, Phys. Rev. Lett. 100, 055003 (2008).

E. Thomas Jr. et al., Plasma Phys. Control. Fusion 54, 124034 (2012).

M. Schwabe, U. Konopka, P. Bandyopadhyay and G.E. Morfill, Phys. Rev. Lett. 106, 215004 (2011).

Our publications related to DuEl and dusty plasmas

M. Romé and F. Lepreti, "Turbulence and coherent structures in non-neutral plasmas", Eur. Phys. J. Plus 126, 38 (2011). [permalink]

F. Lepreti, M. Romé, G. Maero, B. Paroli, R. Pozzoli and V. Carbone, "Scaling properties and intermittency of two-dimensional turbulence in pure electron plasmas", Phys. Rev. E 87, 063110 (2013). [permalink]

G. Maero, F. Cavaliere, M. Cavenago, M. Ikram, F. Lepreti, B. Paroli, R. Pozzoli, and M. Romé, “DuEl: A set-up for the study of non-neutral complex plasmas”, on Europhysics Conference Abstracts Vol. 36F, P1.139, Proceedings of the 39th EPS Conference on Plasma Physics and the 16thInternational Congress on Plasma Physics (Stockholm, Sweden, 2012), ed. by S. Ratynskaya, L. Blomberg and A. Fasoli (European Physical Society, 2012). [link]

M. Romé, F. Cavaliere, M. Cavenago, M. Ikram, G. Maero, C. Marini, B. Paroli, and R. Pozzoli, “Experimental investigation of the dynamics of space-charge dominated, traveling and confined electron plasmas in a Penning-Malmberg trap”, on Europhysics Conference Abstracts Vol. 36F, P1.184, Proceedings of the 39th EPS Conference on Plasma Physics and the 16th  International Congress on Plasma Physics (Stockholm, Sweden, 2012), ed. by S. Ratynskaya, L. Blomberg and A. Fasoli (European Physical Society, 2012). [link]

F. Lepreti, M. Romé, R. Pozzoli, A. Vecchio, V. Carbone, G. Maero, and B. Paroli, “Dynamical and statistical properties of two-dimensional turbulence in pure electron plasmas”, on Europhysics Conference Abstracts Vol. 36F, P2.179, Proceedings of the 39th EPS Conference on Plasma Physics and the 16thInternational Congress on Plasma Physics (Stockholm, Sweden, 2012), ed. by S. Ratynskaya, L. Blomberg and A. Fasoli (European Physical Society, 2012). [link]

M. Romé, F. Lepreti, G. Maero, R. Pozzoli, A. Vecchio, and V. Carbone, “Analysis of the two-dimensional turbulence in pure electron plasmas by means of advanced statistical techniques”, on “Non-Neutral Plasma Physics VIII”, p. 43, AIP Conference Proceedings 1521, Proceedings of the 10th International Workshop on Non-Neutral Plasmas (Greifswald, Germany, 2012), ed. by X. Sarasola, L. Schweikhard and T. S. Pedersen (American Institute of Physics, U.S.A., 2013). [permalink]

M. Romé, F. Cavaliere, M. Cavenago, M. Ikram, F. Lepreti, G. Maero, B. Paroli, and R. Pozzoli, “Experimental and numerical investigation of non-neutral complex plasmas”, on “Non-Neutral Plasma Physics VIII”, p. 273, AIP Conference Proceedings 1521, Proceedings of the 10th International Workshop on Non-Neutral Plasmas (Greifswald, Germany, 2012), ed. by X. Sarasola, L. Schweikhard and T. S. Pedersen (American Institute of Physics, U.S.A., 2013). [permalink]

F. Lepreti, G. Maero, D. Perrone, M. Romé, V. Capparelli, V. Carbone, and A. Vecchio, “Nonlinear dynamics of complex electron plasmas”, on Europhysics Conference Abstracts Vol. 37D, P5.302, Proceedings of the 40th EPS Conference on Plasma Physics (Espoo, Finland, 2013), ed. by V. Naulin, C. Angioni, M. Borghesi, S. Ratynskaia, S. Poedts, T. Donné, T. Kurki-Suonio, S. Äkäslompolo, A. Hakola, M. Airila (European Physical Society, 2013).[link]

G. Maero, F. Lepreti, B. Paroli, D. Perrone, R. Pozzoli, and M. Romé, “Particle-In-Cell investigation of magnetized non-neutral dusty plasmas”, on Europhysics Conference Abstracts Vol. 37D, P5.303, Proceedings of the 40th EPS Conference on Plasma Physics (Espoo, Finland, 2013), ed. by V. Naulin, C. Angioni, M. Borghesi, S. Ratynskaia, S. Poedts, T. Donné, T. Kurki-Suonio, S. Äkäslompolo, A. Hakola, M. Airila (European Physical Society, 2013). [link]

M. Romé, F. Cavaliere, M. Cavenago, F. Lepreti, G. Maero, B. Paroli and R. Pozzoli, “Investigation of magnetized non-neutral complex plasmas”, XCIX Congresso Nazionale della Società Italiana di Fisica (Trieste, Italy, 23-27 September 2013).

E. Tassi, M. Romé and C. Chandre, “A Hamiltonian fluid-kinetic model for a two-species non-neutral plasma”, Phys. Plasmas 21, 044504 (2014). [permalink]

G. Maero, M. Romé, F. Lepreti, and M. Cavenago, “Numerical study of a dust-contaminated electron plasma”, Eur. Phys. J. D 68, 277 (2014). [permalink]