Nonlinear dynamics of large-amplitude dust acoustic shocks and solitary pulses in dusty plasmas

Shukla, Padma and Eliasson, Bengt (2012) Nonlinear dynamics of large-amplitude dust acoustic shocks and solitary pulses in dusty plasmas. Physical Review E, 86 (4). 046402. ISSN 2470-0053 (https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.86.046402)

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Abstract

We present a fully nonlinear theory for dust acoustic (DA) shocks and DA solitary pulses in a strongly coupled dusty plasma, which have been recently observed experimentally by Heinrich et al. [ Phys. Rev. Lett. 103 115002 (2009)], Teng et al. [ Phys. Rev. Lett. 103 245005 (2009)], and Bandyopadhyay et al. [ Phys. Rev. Lett. 101 065006 (2008)]. For this purpose, we use a generalized hydrodynamic model for the strongly coupled dust grains, accounting for arbitrary large-amplitude dust number density compressions and potential distributions associated with fully nonlinear nonstationary DA waves. Time-dependent numerical solutions of our nonlinear model compare favorably well with the recent experimental works (mentioned above) that have reported the formation of large-amplitude nonstationary DA shocks and DA solitary pulses in low-temperature dusty plasma discharges.