Figure 1

Sketch of PK-4 experimental setup.Reuse & Permissions

Figure 2

Complex plasmas in external electric fields: experiments. Particles illuminated by a laser sheet (of $120–150\mu \mathrm{m}$ thickness) passing through the tube axis are recorded from the side by a CCD camera. The figure (raw data, single video frames) illustrates the particle string formation observed in the ac mode (left-hand panel) and a practically isotropic distribution in the dc mode (right-hand panel). Both cases represent the same set of experimental parameters: particles of $6.86\mu \mathrm{m}$ diameter with the number density of about $5\times {10}^4{\mathrm{cm}}^{-3}$, discharge current 1 mA, and gas pressure 60 Pa (corresponds to $M_T\simeq 0.4$). The insets show the corresponding 2D distributions of the scaling index $\alpha$ in the longitudinal and transverse directions (left and right curves, respectively). The regions used for the analysis are marked by rectangular boxes.Reuse & Permissions

Figure 3

Complex plasmas in external electric fields: simulations. The figure demonstrates the complementary MD simulations performed for $M_T=0.35$ (upper row) and $M_T=0.5$ (lower row), other parameters are the same as in Fig. 2. Similar to the experiment, we observe the formation of particle strings in the ac mode (left-hand panel) and isotropic particle distribution in the dc mode (right-hand panel). The insets show the corresponding longitudinal and transverse distributions of the scaling index $\alpha$ (see Fig. 2).Reuse & Permissions