Dissipative solitary wave at the interface of a binary complex plasma

¹ College of Science, Donghua University - 201620 Shanghai, PRC
² Institut für Materialphysik im Weltraum, Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR) 82234 Weßling, Germany
³ Joint Institute for High Temperatures - 125412 Moscow, Russia
⁴ Center for Soft Condensed Matter Physics and Interdisciplinary Research, College of Physics, Optoelectronics and Energy, Soochow University - 215006 Suzhou, PRC
⁵ Member of Magnetic Confinement Fusion Research Centre, Ministry of Education - PRC

^(a) chengran.du@dhu.edu.cn

Received: 28 May 2018
Accepted: 28 June 2018

Abstract

The propagation of a dissipative solitary wave across an interface is studied in a binary complex plasma. The experiments were performed under microgravity conditions in the PK-3 Plus Laboratory on board the International Space Station using microparticles with diameters of 1.55 μm and 2.55 μm immersed in a low-temperature plasma. The solitary wave was excited at the edge of a particle-free region and propagated from the sub-cloud of small particles into that of big particles. The interfacial effect was observed by measuring the deceleration of particles in the wave crest. The results are compared with a Langevin dynamics simulation, where the waves were excited by a gentle push on the edge of the sub-cloud of small particles. Reflection of the wave at the interface is induced by increasing the strength of the push. By tuning the ion drag force exerted on big particles in the simulation, the effective width of the interface is adjusted. We show that the strength of reflection increases with narrower interfaces.