Honors Thesis Archive
| Author | Erica Snipes |
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| Title | Measurements of finite dust temperature effects in the dispersion relation of the dust acoustic wave |
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| Department | Physics |
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| Advisors | Jeremiah Williams, William Dollhopf, and Ray Dudek |
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| Year | 2009 |
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| Honors | University Honors |
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| Full Text | View Thesis (930 KB) Note: This is a very large file; it may be easier to download the file to your computer and open it from there. |
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| Abstract | A dusty plasma is a four-component system composed of ions, electrons, neutral
particles and charged microparticles. The presence of these charged microparticles gives
rise to new plasma wave modes, including the dust acoustic wave. Recent measurements
of the dispersion relationship for the dust acoustic wave in a glow discharge plasma have
shown that finite temperature effects are observed in the dispersion relationship over a
range of neutral gas pressure. In this range of pressures, it is observed that the dust has a
temperature that is significantly larger than the other plasma components, (Td > 30 eV).
Outside of this range of neutral gas pressure the dust is observed to be at room
temperature, i.e. Td ~ 1/40 eV. We present the results of ongoing work examining finite
temperature effects in the dispersion relation as a function of neutral gas pressure. |
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