A numerical study of gravity-driven instability in strongly coupled dusty plasma. Part 2. Hetero-interactions between a rising bubble and a falling droplet

Abstract

In part 1 (V. S. Dharodi and A. Das, J. Plasma Phys. 87 (02), 905870216 (2021)), we simulated the individual dynamics of a bubble (a localized low-density region) and a droplet (a localized high-density region) in a strongly coupled dusty plasma. We observed that under the influence of gravity, the result of a pair of counter-rotating vorticity lobes causes the bubble to rise and droplet to fall. With an interest to understand the hetero- (bubble–droplet) interactions between them, we extend this study to their combined evolution through the following two arrangements. First, both are placed side-by-side in a row at the same height. We observe that the overall dynamics is governed by the competition between the net vertical motion induced by gravity and rotational motion induced by the pairing between two co-rotating inner vorticity lobes. In the second arrangement, the vertically aligned bubble (below) and droplet (above) after collision exchange their partners and subsequently start to move horizontally in opposite directions away from each other. This horizontal movement becomes slower with increasing coupling strength. For these arrangements, we consider varying the distance between the fixed-size bubble and droplet, and varying the coupling strength. To visualize the bubble–droplet interactions, a series of two-dimensional simulations have been conducted in the framework of an incompressible generalized hydrodynamic viscoelastic fluid model.