2023 - Full Presentation Schedule
Spatiotemporal Dynamics of Plasma Filaments at High Magnetic Fields
Abstract
Recent experiments in the Magnetized Dusty Plasma Experiment (MDPX) at Auburn University have shown that capacitively coupled, radio frequency generated plasmas form different kinds of filamentary structures when exposed to a high enough magnetic field (B > 1 T).
Essentially, these filaments are non-uniformities in the plasma, that appear as bright vertical elongated structures parallel to the magnetic field, formed between two parallel plate electrodes. When observed from the top, they can have different shapes such as circular, s-shaped two-arm, and three-arm or four-arm spirals, indicating that these structures might be azimuthal eigenmodes of some underlying instability mechanism. A host of spatiotemporal dynamics have been identified including spinning about a stable axis, global motion due to filament-filament interaction, filament merger and changing shapes from one to the other.
This presentation discusses the image analysis techniques used to better understand the spatiotemporal variations of these filaments. This research is part of an ongoing effort to understand the fundamental physics that lead to structure formation and the ensuing dynamics.
Acknowledgements: This work is supported with funding from the US Department of Energy and the NSF-EPSCoR Program, CPU2AL. It is a continuation of the study reported in the journal article: S. Williams, S. Chakraborty Thakur, M. Menati and E. Thomas Jr, Physics of Plasmas 29 (1), 012110. Editing and permissions provided by S. Chakraborty Thakur, mentor of CPU2AL program “Understanding spatiotemporal plasma dynamics in MDPX using fast imaging.”
Spatiotemporal Dynamics of Plasma Filaments at High Magnetic Fields
CASB 103 - Physical, Computer, and Chemical Science
Recent experiments in the Magnetized Dusty Plasma Experiment (MDPX) at Auburn University have shown that capacitively coupled, radio frequency generated plasmas form different kinds of filamentary structures when exposed to a high enough magnetic field (B > 1 T).
Essentially, these filaments are non-uniformities in the plasma, that appear as bright vertical elongated structures parallel to the magnetic field, formed between two parallel plate electrodes. When observed from the top, they can have different shapes such as circular, s-shaped two-arm, and three-arm or four-arm spirals, indicating that these structures might be azimuthal eigenmodes of some underlying instability mechanism. A host of spatiotemporal dynamics have been identified including spinning about a stable axis, global motion due to filament-filament interaction, filament merger and changing shapes from one to the other.
This presentation discusses the image analysis techniques used to better understand the spatiotemporal variations of these filaments. This research is part of an ongoing effort to understand the fundamental physics that lead to structure formation and the ensuing dynamics.
Acknowledgements: This work is supported with funding from the US Department of Energy and the NSF-EPSCoR Program, CPU2AL. It is a continuation of the study reported in the journal article: S. Williams, S. Chakraborty Thakur, M. Menati and E. Thomas Jr, Physics of Plasmas 29 (1), 012110. Editing and permissions provided by S. Chakraborty Thakur, mentor of CPU2AL program “Understanding spatiotemporal plasma dynamics in MDPX using fast imaging.”