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DE-SC0025444: Charging of Dust in the Afterglow of a Magnetized Plasma

Award Status: Active
  • Institution: Appalachian State University, Boone, NC
  • UEI: F1NAKY5L1425
  • DUNS: 781866264
  • Most Recent Award Date: 09/13/2024
  • Number of Support Periods: 1
  • PM: Podder, Nirmol
  • Current Budget Period: 09/01/2024 - 08/31/2025
  • Current Project Period: 09/01/2024 - 08/31/2026
  • PI: Kananovich, Anton
  • Supplement Budget Period: N/A
 

Public Abstract

Proof-of-concept experiments will be carried out on the Magnetized Dusty Plasma Experiment (MDPX) apparatus at Auburn University’s Magnetized Plasma Research Laboratory (MPRL) to prepare a future line of research on dust charging in the plasma afterglow of a magnetized plasma. Small solid particles, i.e., dust particles, gain a large electric charge, when immersed in the electrons and ions of a plasma. Until recently, almost all laboratory experiments with dusty plasmas were performed with constantly powered plasmas, in which the dust charge is almost always negative. A large positive charge, on the other hand, can develop within microseconds of switching off the power that sustained the plasma, as was discovered recently. In this condition, known as a temporal afterglow, electrons and ions persist long enough to drastically change the dust particle’s charge. Recent afterglow experiments have revealed that one can control the dust particle’s charge as well as a lifting force, by applying known electric fields to the particle in the afterglow. Those experiments were performed without a magnetic field. In this project, measurements of dust charge will be carried out in an afterglow of a magnetized plasma for the first time. It is expected magnetizing electrons will alter their transport, and therefore the spatio-temporal conditions of the electrons and ions that determine the dust charging. The proof-of-concept experiments will establish the equipment and parameters required for a future line of fundamental physics experiments.



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