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At least 19 records

Electrostatic Dissipation in 3D-Printable Silicone

Here, in this report, we describe the incorporation of single-walled carbon nanotubes (CNTs) into 3D printable siloxane elastomers for electrostatic dissipation. The composite was characterized, focusing on how rheological and mechanical properties of the siloxane are affected at various CNT loading levels. Electrical properties were also characterized to develop materials with effective electrostatic dissipation. We demonstrate that low loadings (<1 wt %) of CNTs can be sufficiently dispersed into silicone resins that can be 3D printed, and the resulting material shows a significant improvement in electrostatic dissipation through the reduction in electrical resistivity with minimal effect on its mechanical properties.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Electron-scale dissipative electrostatic solitons in multi-species plasmas

The linear and nonlinear properties of small-amplitude electron-acoustic solitary waves are investigated via the fluid dynamical approach. A three-component plasma is considered, composed of hot electrons, cold electrons, and ions (considered stationary at the scale of interest). A dissipative (wave damping) effect is assumed due to electron-neutral collisions. The background (hot) electrons are characterized by an energetic (excessively superthermal) population and are thus modeled via a κ-type nonthermal distribution. The linear characteristics of electron-acoustic excitations are discussed, for different values of the plasma parameters (superthermality index κ and cold versus hot electron population concentration β). Large wavelengths (beyond a threshold value) are shown to be overdamped. The reductive perturbation technique is used to derive a dissipative Korteweg de-Vries (KdV) equation for small-amplitude electrostatic potential disturbances. These are expressed by exact solutions in the form of dissipative solitary waves, whose dynamics is investigated analytically and numerically. Our results should be useful in elucidating the behavior of space and experimental plasmas characterized by a coexistence of electron populations at different temperatures, where electron-neutral collisions are of relevance.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

Controlling the stability of Pickering emulsions by pH-responsive nanoparticles

Electrostatic dissipative particle dynamics simulations were conducted to model the interactions between emulsion droplets stabilized by pH-sensitive polyelectrolyte-grafted nanoparticles. Using a steered molecular dynamics approach, a mechanistic study of forced coalescence was performed to probe the resistance between two particle-covered droplets. The degree of ionization of the grafted polyelectrolytes was adjusted to capture the pH responsiveness. The maximal resistance forces were measured to quantitatively discriminate the efficacy of particles in stabilizing emulsions at different degrees of ionization. Through analyzing droplet dynamics, resistance force variation, and electric field, we discovered that the resistance is attributed to direct electrostatic repulsion, the image charge effect near the water–oil interface, and steric hindrance among extended polymers. When the particle density on the droplet surface is relatively low, the increasing resistance forces at higher degrees of ionization can effectively prevent droplet coalescence. Oppositely, the ionization compromises emulsion stability when the particle surface coverage is high. Substantial desorption of particles from the interface was triggered as the degree of ionization increases. Finally, this in turn reduces resistance force and facilitates coalescence. Moreover, the nanoparticles prevent coalescence at high surface coverages by forming dense layers at individual interfaces, while the particle bridges straddling two interfaces were found at low surface coverages, which can also keep the droplets apart.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Extracting forces from noisy dynamics in dusty plasmas

Extracting environmental forces from noisy data is a common yet challenging task in complex physical systems. Machine learning (ML) represents a robust approach to this problem, yet is mostly tested on simulated data with known parameters. Here we use supervised ML to extract the electrostatic, dissipative, and stochastic forces acting on micron-sized charged particles levitated in an argon plasma (dusty plasma). By tracking the sub-pixel motion of particles in subsequent images, we successfully estimated these forces from their random motion. The experiments contained important sources of non-Gaussian noise, such as drift and pixel-locking, representing a data mismatch from methods used to analyze simulated data with purely Gaussian noise. Our model was trained on simulated particle trajectories that included all of these artifacts, and used more than 100 dynamical and statistical features, resulting in a prediction with 50\% better accuracy than conventional methods. Lastly, in systems with two interacting particles, the model provided non-contact measurements of the particle charge and Debye length in the plasma environment.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

Optical Flow Diagnostics of Counter Fluidization of Gravity-Driven Moving Packed Bed for a CSP Receiver Section Featuring Staggered Array of Cylindrical Pins

Particle fluidized beds have the potential to improve the efficiency of heat transfer in concentrated solar receiver furnace for use in next generation concentrated solar power (CSP) plants. This study presents an experimental investigation on the flow characterization of vertically downward moving packed bed with counter fluidization through an array of jets. To control the bubble size and its distribution in the bubbling fluidized bed, an array of cylindrical pin fins was arranged uniformly across the test article. The flow visualization was performed on the surface of transparent glass coated with electrically conductive materials for electrostatic dissipation purposes. The image acquisition was carried out via high-speed camera at a frequency of ~ 1kHz. The acquired images were analyzed in pairs with the help of a modern optical flow algorithm capable of calculating the movement of dense particle flow in the fluidized bed by tracking the light intensity of each predefined window of the frames. A comparison of fluidized beds with plane and pin-finned channels revealed distinct bubble behavior. Pin-finned channels were found to produce a larger number of small-sized bubbles, while plane channels generated fewer but larger bubbles at any given instant. The presence of pin fins was observed to reduce bubble size by preventing bubble merging and splitting larger bubbles when they encountered a pin.

concentrating solar power↗

Driven electrostatic phase space vortices in a 1D weakly dissipative Vlasov–Poisson system

In this paper, the effect of collisions on driven electrostatic phase space vortices is analyzed by means of Eulerian simulation for two different collision models. It was demonstrated recently that in the absence of collisions, at late times, steady state phase space vortices manifest to form a plateau in the resonant region of the particle velocity distribution function, due to trapping of particles supporting multiextrema giant phase space vortices (PSVs). In the presence of collisions, over long time, this multiextrema plateau are found to smooth out, since collisions drive the velocity distribution toward Maxwellian, irrespective of how weak the collisions are as long as they are non-zero. In these conditions, kinetic processes and collisionality are found to be in competition, and the evolution of the plasma is found, therefore, to be a result of nontrivial combination of these two effects. An attempt has been made by means of numerical simulations to study the effect of weak collisionality on the electrostatic driven phase space vortices with two types of collision operators: (1) Bhatnagar–Gross–Krook (Krook) collision operator, where the colliding particles can be treated as isolated pairs and, (2) Fokker–Planck (FP) type collision operator (Zakharov–Karpman) in one dimension, where many weak collisions lead to particle diffusion in velocity space. It is shown that depending on the collision model used, the nature of smoothing in velocity space of giant PSVs results in qualitatively very different phase space structures. However, irrespective of the collision model used, excess density fractions over 10% are retained.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

PLASMA EFFECTS ON FAST PAIR BEAMS IN COSMIC VOIDS

The interaction of TeV gamma rays from distant blazars with the extragalactic background light produces relativistic electron-positron pair beams by the photon- photon annihilation process. The created pair beam distribution is unstable to linear two-stream instabilities of both electrostatic and electromagnetic nature in the unmagnetized intergalactic medium (IGM). The maximum electrostatic growth rate occurs at angles of 39.{sup 0}2 with respect to the pair beam direction, and is more than three orders of magnitude greater than the maximum Weibel growth rate, indicating that the linear oblique electrostatic instability operates much faster than the Weibel instability. The dissipation of the generated electrostatic turbulence is different for intense and weak gamma-ray blazars. For intense blazars, the normalized number of generated pairs n {sub 22} = n{sub b} /[10{sup -22} cm{sup -3}] exceeds the critical density n{sub c} (T) = 4.8 Multiplication-Sign 10{sup -3} T {sub 4} for given normalized IGM temperature T {sub 4} = T/[10{sup 4} K] necessary for the onset of the modulation instability, so that all free kinetic pair energy is dissipated in heating the IGM in cosmic voids. For weak blazars, half of the initial energy density of the beam particles is transferred to the electrostatic and electromagnetic fluctuations on timescales smaller than the inverse Compton energy loss timescale of the pairs. In both cases, this prevents the development of a full electromagnetic pair cascade as in vacuum. For weak blazars, the superluminal electrostatic fluctuations are dissipated by the inverse Compton scattering into transverse electromagnetic waves by the relaxed relativistic pair particles to optical frequencies, implying the occurrence of optical electrostatic bremsstrahlung pair halos from weak blazars with spectral flux densities below 50 {mu}Jy.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Chirped dissipative ion-cyclotron solitons in the Earth's low-altitude ionospheric plasma with two ion species

Conditions for the excitation of small-scale nonlinear ion-cyclotron gradient-drift dissipative structures in cold ionospheric plasma are considered. The solution for the wave electric field in this structure in the form of a chirped soliton satisfying the equation of the Ginzburg-Landau type is derived in the electrostatic approach. The dissipative structure as a whole represents the chirped soliton accompanied by the comoving quasineutral plasma hump. The possibility of the excitation of two modes of this type (the high- and low-frequency ones) in plasma containing light and heavy ion impurities is considered. The role of electromagnetic corrections and the possible contribution introduced by these structures to the transport processes in the ionosphere are discussed.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

Propagation of nonlinear coherent structures in a collisional magnetoplasma with nonthermal electrons and finite ion temperature

Nonlinear electrostatic waves in dissipative magnetized electron-ion (e-i) plasmas are investigated employing the two fluid model. In this regard, Zakharov Kuznetsov Burgers (ZKB) equation is derived using the small amplitude perturbation expansion method. It is observed that the nonthermal electron population, obliqueness, ion thermal effects, and kinematic viscosity significantly alter the structure of obliquely propagating nonlinear ion acoustic shock waves in dissipative e-i magnetoplasmas. It is observed that the system can admit both compressive and rarefactive shocks. The condition for the formation of both types of shocks is also given. The present study may be useful to understand the nonlinear propagation characteristics of electrostatic shock structures in space environments where the nonthermal electrons have been observed by various satellite missions such as Voyager and Freja.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

The various manifestations of collisionless dissipation in wave propagation

The propagation of an electrostatic wave packet inside a collisionless and initially Maxwellian plasma is always dissipative because of the irreversible acceleration of the electrons by the wave. Then, in the linear regime, the wave packet is Landau damped, so that in the reference frame moving at the group velocity, the wave amplitude decays exponentially with time. In the nonlinear regime, once phase mixing has occurred and when the electron motion is nearly adiabatic, the damping rate is strongly reduced compared to the Landau one, so that the wave amplitude remains nearly constant along the characteristics. Yet, we show here that the electrons are still globally accelerated by the wave packet, and in one dimension, this leads to a non local amplitude dependence of the group velocity. As a result, a freely propagating wave packet would shrink, and therefore, so would its total energy. In more than one dimension, not only does the magnitude of the group velocity nonlinearly vary, but also its direction. In the weakly nonlinear regime, when the collisionless damping rate is still significant compared to its linear value, the group velocity is directed towards the outside of the wave packet and tends to increase its transverse extent, while the opposite is true once the wave is essentially undamped. The impact of the nonlinear variation of the group velocity on the transverse size of the wave packet is quantified, and compared to that induced by the self-focussing due to wave front bowing.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

Plasma effects on fast pair beams. III. Oblique electrostatic growth rates for perpendicular Maxwellian pair beams

The distant universe is opaque to γ radiation from blazars due to gamma-gamma attenuation with extragalactic background light. This process produces electron-positron pair beams that interact with the intergalactic medium and are unstable to linear instabilities, particularly the electrostatic and Weibel instabilities. The electrostatic instability grows faster and so determines the dissipation of the free energy of the beam. Here, we generalize the calculation of the electrostatic growth rate to a beam plasma system with a Maxwellian perpendicular momentum spread and allow for oblique propagation directions. We show that the growth rate for the oblique electrostatic mode has a maximum value that is even higher than for a cold beam or for one with a constant perpendicular momentum spread.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Investigation of the interaction between competing types of nondiffusive transport in drift wave turbulence

Radial transport in turbulence dominated tokamak plasmas has been observed to deviate from classical diffusion in certain regimes relevant for magnetic confinement fusion. These situations at least include near-marginal turbulence, where radial transport becomes superdiffusive and mediated by elongated radial structures (or avalanches) and transport across radially sheared poloidal flows, where radial subdiffusion often ensues. In this paper, the interaction between very different physical ingredients responsible for these two types of nondiffusive dynamics (namely, turbulent profile relaxation close to a local threshold and the interaction with radially sheared zonal flows) is studied in detail in the context of a simple two-dimensional electrostatic plasma fluid turbulence model based on the dissipative trapped electron mode. It is shown that, depending on the relative relevance of each of these ingredients, which can be tuned in various ways, a variety of non-diffusive radial transport behaviors can be found in the system. The results also illustrate the fact that the classical diffusion paradigm is often insufficient to describe turbulent transport in systems with self-generated flows and turbulent profile relaxations.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

Effect of Electrostatic Interaction in the Formation of Dust-Acoustic Shock Wave with Fluctuating Dust Charge

A theoretical investigation on the effect of electrostatic interaction on dust acoustic wave (DAW) has been carried out in weakly nonlinear limit in strongly coupled regime with fluctuating dust charge. The generalized hydrodynamic set of equations is employed in the hydrodynamic limit. The dust−dust electrostatic interaction couples with dust charge fluctuation, as well as the viscosity of the medium, and provides the dissipative effect, which leads to the formation of shock wave in such a system. The novel feature of the present work is that, in the presence of charge fluctuation, the effective electrostatic temperature starts affecting the behavior and also enhancing the formation of monotonic shock wave. In this investigation, the dissipative effect arising due to charge fluctuation is dominant in comparison to the viscosity of the medium in the presence of electrostatic temperature.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

Ion acceleration by laser hole-boring into plasmas

By experiment and simulations, we study the interaction of an intense CO{sub 2} laser pulse with slightly overcritical plasmas of fully ionized helium gas. Transverse optical probing is used to show a recession of the front plasma surface with an initial velocity >10{sup 6} m/s driven by hole-boring by the laser pulse and the resulting radiation pressure driven electrostatic shocks. The collisionless shock propagates through the plasma, dissipates into an ion-acoustic solitary wave, and eventually becomes collisional as it slows further. These observations are supported by PIC simulations which prove the conclusion that monoenergetic protons observed in our earlier reported experiment with a hydrogen jet result from ion trapping and reflection from a shock wave driven through the plasma.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

Two dimensional nonplanar evolution of electrostatic shock waves in pair-ion plasmas

Electrostatic waves in a two dimensional nonplanar geometry are studied in an unmagnetized, dissipative pair-ion plasma in the presence of weak transverse perturbations. The dissipation in the system is taken into account by incorporating the kinematic viscosity of both positive and negative ions in plasmas. The nonplanar Kadomtsev-Petviashvili-Burgers (KPB) as well as the Burgers Kadomtsev-Petviashvili (Burgers KP) equations are derived using the small amplitude expansion method and the range of applicability of both the equations are discussed. The system under consideration is observed to admit compressive rarefactive shocks. The present study may have relevance to understand the formation of two dimensional nonplanar electrostatic shocks in laboratory plasmas.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

Producing entangled photon pairs and quantum squeezed states in plasmas

Plasma is capable of mediating the conversion of two pump photons into two different photons through a relativistic four-wave mixing nonlinearity. Spontaneously created photon pairs are emitted at symmetric angles with respect to the colinear pump direction, and the emission rate is largest if they have identical frequency. Thus, two orthogonally polarized pumps can produce polarization-entangled photon pairs through a millimeter-long homogeneous plasma. Here, the noise from Raman scattering can be avoided if the pump detuning differs from twice the plasma frequency. However, pump detuning exactly equal to twice the plasma frequency can significantly enhance the interaction rate, which allows for the production of strong two-mode squeezed states. Remarkably, the amplified noise from Raman scattering are correlated and hence can be suppressed in one of the output quadratures, thereby maintaining the squeezing magnitude.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

Collision-dependent power law scalings in two dimensional gyrokinetic turbulence

Nonlinear gyrokinetics provides a suitable framework to describe short-wavelength turbulence in magnetized laboratory and astrophysical plasmas. In the electrostatic limit, this system is known to exhibit a free energy cascade towards small scales in (perpendicular) real and/or velocity space. The dissipation of free energy is always due to collisions (no matter how weak the collisionality), but may be spread out across a wide range of scales. Here, we focus on freely decaying two dimensional electrostatic turbulence on sub-ion-gyroradius scales. An existing scaling theory for the turbulent cascade in the weakly collisional limit is generalized to the moderately collisional regime. In this context, non-universal power law scalings due to multiscale dissipation are predicted, and this prediction is confirmed by means of direct numerical simulations.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

Entanglement of excitons by acoustic guiding

A system is described that exhibits the functionality of a beam-splitter, typically an optical device that splits a beam of light in two. In this case, the beams are acoustic pulses and can lead to the creation of a Wannier-Mott exciton: a bound state of an electron and an electron hole whose attraction to each other is maintained by the electrostatic Coulomb force. This exciton beam-splitter is lossy (i.e., involves the dissipation of electrical or electromagnetic energy). Half of the time the exciton is radiated away. Nevertheless, if the exciton is not lost, the exciton is now in a superposition of two states that can be well separated in position. Four such beam-splitters can be used to make an exciton interferometer that uses the interference patterns from the interacting acoustic pulses to extract information.

Yurke, Bernard↗