RUI: Experimental Study of the Interaction of an Electron Beam with a Dusty Plasma and the Emergence of Turbulence

“尘埃”或“复杂”等离子体是一种电离气体，由离子、电子和小颗粒物质（尘埃或冰）组成，通常比人类头发的宽度小得多。在太空中，尘埃等离子体的例子包括恒星和行星形成的云、彗星尾巴、行星环和地球电离层中的夜光云。尘埃等离子体也会在化学活性等离子体中形成，这些等离子体用于工业等离子体处理设备，以制造计算机芯片，污染最终产品并降低总体产量，以及太阳能光伏电池的制造，其中尘埃可以提高所得太阳能电池的整体效率。该奖项将支持一系列旨在了解这种独特物质状态的基本特性的实验，并将利用这些尘埃等离子体系统的特性来深入了解流体的基本特性。该研究项目将支持在一个小型学院环境中培养几名极具天赋的本科生，为学生提供比大型院校更全面的研究技能培训；熟悉最先进的软件和实验技术；以及各种解决实际问题的技巧。这项研究计划包括几个实验，这些实验将检验电子束和尘埃等离子体之间的相互作用。一系列实验将利用尘埃等离子体表现得像粘弹性流体这一事实，在比传统流体系统小得多的雷诺数的粒子水平上，获得对流体动力学湍流前兆的基本洞察。第二个系列的实验将利用在尘埃等离子体系统中传播的基本波模式，即尘埃声波，来理解第二种被称为波湍流的湍流的出现。第三组实验将研究尘埃颗粒如何带电，从而对尘埃等离子体界的一个基本而开放的问题产生新的见解：尘埃颗粒上的电荷是什么？这项工作将扩展与奥本大学等离子体科学实验室、贝勒大学天体物理、空间物理和工程研究中心以及罗马尼亚国家激光、等离子体和辐射物理研究所电子加速器实验室的同事们的合作工作。总之，这些研究将有助于对尘埃等离子体中充电的基本过程的基本理解，并为两种不同类型的湍流的出现提供新的见解。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

A "dusty" or "complex" plasma is an ionized gas consisting of ions, electrons, and small particulate matter (dust or ice) that is typically much smaller than the width of a human hair. In space, examples of dusty plasmas include the clouds from which stars and planets form, comet tails, planetary rings and noctilucent clouds in the Earth's ionosphere. Dusty plasmas are also formed in the chemically active plasmas that are used in industrial plasma processing devices to create computer chips, contaminating the end product and reducing overall yield, and the manufacturing of solar photovoltaic cells, where the dust can increase the overall efficiency of the resulting solar cells. This award will support a series of experiments aimed at understanding a fundamental property of this unique state of matter and will also make use of the properties of these dusty plasmas systems to gain insight into the fundamental properties of a fluid. The research program will support the training of several highly talented undergraduate students in a small college environment, providing the students with a more comprehensive research skills training than at comparable experiences at larger institutions; experience with state-of-the-art software and experimental techniques; and a variety of practical problem solving skills.The research program consists of several experiments that will examine the interaction between an electron beam and dusty plasma. One series of experiments will leverage the fact that dusty plasmas behave like a viscoelastic fluid to gain fundamental insight into the precursors of hydrodynamic turbulence at the particle level at much smaller Reynold’s numbers than in a traditional fluid system. A second series of experiments will make use of a fundamental wave mode that propagates in dusty plasma systems known as the dust acoustic wave to understand the emergence of a second type of turbulence known as wave turbulence. A third set of experiments will examine how the dust grain charge, yielding new insight into a fundamental and open question in the dusty plasma community: what is the charge on the dust grain. This work will extend collaborative work done with colleagues at in the Plasma Science Laboratory at Auburn University, the Center of Astrophysics, Space Physics and Engineering Research at Baylor University and the Electron Accelerators Laboratory at the National Institute for Laser, Plasma and Radiation Physics in Romania. Together, these studies will contribute to the fundamental understanding of the fundamental process of charging in dusty plasmas and provide new insight into the emergence of two different types of turbulence.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.