MRI: Development of a Magnetized Dusty Plasma Device

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This project will develop a new multi-user multi-institutional research instrument -- a magnetized dusty plasma device. The device would be housed at Auburn University (Auburn, Alabama). The PI (Edward Thomas, African American) from Auburn University, heads a strong team of co-PIs including Marlene Rosenberg (female) from University of California, San Diego, and Robert Merlino from the University of Iowa (EPSCoR state). This project combines the integrated development of a superconducting, high magnetic field (|B| = 4 Tesla) system, a flexible, multiconfiguration plasma chamber and plasma source, a novel nanoparticle imaging system, and an advanced, network-based control system to create a unique, research device that will be the premier instrument of its type in the dusty plasma research community. This project is the culmination of over two years of international development activity. This effort has leveraged the expertise of the entire dusty plasma research community as well as involving researchers with interests in fusion, astrophysics, and fluid mechanics, and thus provides strong evidence that this community will embrace this project and make use of this new resource. Moreover, this proposed project is transformational in that, once operational, this device will allow access to regimes of dusty plasma behavior that have previously been inaccessible, which provides additional motivation for broad community support for this project. Investigations of grain charging (e.g., ion/electron gyro-orbits less than inter-grain distances), wave phenomena (e.g., electrostatic dust cyclotron wave), magnetic field effects on dust transport (e.g., g[vector] ×B[vector] drift), and the behavior of plasma with embedded paramagnetic particles are new scientific topics that will be enabled by this device.