Observation of non-planar dust acoustic solitary wave in a strongly coupled dusty plasma

Abstract

The nonlinear evolution and propagation of a stable dust acoustic solitary wave (DASW) in a non-planar geometry is investigated here. The experiment is performed in a strongly coupled dusty plasma consisting of monodisperse micrometer sized particles levitated in the sheath of a capacitively coupled radio frequency argon plasma. The non-planar waves are generated with the help of a cylindrical conducting exciter pin placed at the center of the homogeneous dust cloud. A negative excitation pulse is used to create a dust void and a dust density perturbation simultaneously around the exciter. From the edge of the void, the density perturbation propagates as a nonlinear (cylindrical) non-planar DASW. The characteristics of the solitary wave are measured using image analysis of the recorded video of wave propagation. The numerical solution of the modified Korteweg–de Vries equation with an additional term to take care of the non-planar geometry is compared with the experimental observation. The wave amplitude and width are measured as a function of time and compared with the theoretical predictions.