Analysis of Transport Properties of Dusty Plasmas
This dissertation investigates diffusion, viscosity, and melting in strongly coupled dusty plasmas, emphasizing finite-system effects and binary-mixture dynamics. A Short-Time-Regime DDM (STR-DDM) method is developed to measure diffusion reliably in strongly correlated systems by isolating short-time scale dynamics before caging and collective modes dominate. It achieves high accuracy and robustness compared with traditional DDM and particle tracking. For viscosity, the Green–Kubo relation is reassessed in finite two-dimensional systems. By reconstructing and removing macroscopic flow fields, reliable thermal fluctuations are recovered, and the resulting viscosities agree with infinite-system predictions after appropriate normalization. Transport in binary mixtures is analyzed using effective parameters based on averaged charge, spacing, and frequency. Diffusion and viscosity collapse onto a universal curve when scaled by the Einstein frequency, and the Stokes–Einstein relation holds over a broad coupling range, with deviations emerging near the cold-liquid regime. Finally, melting in binary mixtures is resolved using local interparticle distance fluctuations and particle hopping analysis. Smaller particles melt earlier due to lower local potential barriers, revealing a microscopic, component-dependent melting pathway. Overall, the dissertation provides robust diagnostic tools and unified physical insights into transport and melting in finite and binary strongly coupled systems.
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