The linear dust lattice waves propagating in a two-dimensional honeycomb configuration is investigated. The interaction between particles is considered up to distance 2a, i.e. the third-neighbor interactions. Longitudinal and transverse (in-plane) dispersion relations are derived for waves in arbitrary directions. The study of dispersion relations with more neighbor interactions shows that in some cases the results change physically. Also, the dispersion relation in the different direction displays anisotropy of the group velocity in the lattice. The results are compared with dispersion relations of the waves in the hexagonal lattice.

The nonlinear propagation of dust ion-acoustic (DIA) solitary waves (SWs) as well as double layers (DLs) in a dusty plasma containing warm adiabatic ions, non-extensive electrons, and arbitrarily (positively or negatively) charged immobile dust are studied. Based on the energy-like integral equation, a new relationship between the localized electrostatic disturbances and dust polarity in the non-extensive dusty plasma is derived. It is shown that the effect of electron non-extensivity, in contrast to the influence of extensive electrons, is destructive for the formation of the SWs and DLs. It is also found that the negative (positive) dust number density raises (reduces) the possibility for the formation of these localized states.

The processes responsible for initiation of electrical breakdown in xenon-filled tube with two spherical iron electrodes at 2.7-mbar pressure have been analyzed. The analysis is based on the experimental data of electrical breakdown time delay as a function of afterglow period. It is shown that positive ions remaining from previous discharge, as well as positive ions created in mutual collisions of metastable atoms in afterglow, have a dominant role in secondary emission of electrons from the cathode which lead to initiation of breakdown in early afterglow. In late afterglow, dominant role in initiation of breakdown is taken by N(4S) atoms formed during the discharge by dissociation of ground state nitrogen molecules that are present as impurities in xenon. When the concentration of N(4S) atoms decreases sufficiently, the initiation of breakdown is caused by cosmic radiation. Small doses of gamma-ray irradiation also contribute to the initiation of breakdown, but only for large values of the afterglow period.

In this paper, turbulent transport in the edge plasma of the IR-T1 tokamak (r/a = 0.9) in the presence of a resonant helical magnetic field (RHF) and a biased limiter has been investigated and analyzed. The time evolution of potential fluctuation, and electric field and turbulent transport have been measured by using two arrays of the Langmuir probes in both the radial and poloidal directions. The experiments have been done in different regimes such as limiter biasing and RHF, and both of them. The analyses have been done by the fast Fourier transport method and their spectral features are obtained with the help of the standard autocorrelation technique. The results show that radial turbulent transport decreases about 60% after positive biasing application, while it increases about 40% after negative biasing. The effect of positive biasing on poloidal turbulent transport displays an increase of about 55%, while the negative bias voltage decreases the poloidal turbulent transport about 30%. Consequently, confinement is improved and plasma density rises significantly due to the applied positive biasing in IR-T1. However, the results are reversed when negative biasing is applied. Also, in this work, the results of the applied RHF (L = 3) are compared with biasing results and analyzed.

The nonlinear coupling of two high-power laser beams in plasmas in the presence of a transverse, static electric field is investigated to generate a difference frequency terahertz (THz) radiation. The relativistic variation of electron mass in the presence of two high-power laser beams is responsible for producing a nonlinear current driving the THz radiation. For typical laser and plasma parameters, we report the efficiency of the order of ~10−4 for the current scheme.

The large-amplitude ion-acoustic double layers in a collisionless plasma consisting of isothermal positrons, warm adiabatic ions and two-temperature distribution of electrons are investigated. Using the pseudo-potential approach, an energy-integral equation for the system has been derived which encompasses complete nonlinearity for the plasma system. The existence region of the double layers is analyzed numerically. It is found that for a selected set of physical parameters, the rarefactive double layer exists in the electron–positron–ion plasma. It is found that the existence regime of the double layer is very sensitive to the plasma parameters, e.g. cold electron concentration (μ) and temperature ratio of two electron species (β). An increase in the finite ion temperature ratio increases the amplitude of the rarefactive double layer. To study small-amplitude double layers, we have expanded the Sagdeev potential. In the case of small amplitude, it is found that the amplitude of the double layer increases with increase in ion temperature ratio (σ) and cold electron concentration (μ). However increase in positron concentration (α) and temperature ratio of positrons to electrons (γ) decreases the amplitude of the double layer. The effect of various plasma parameters on the characteristics of the double layers is discussed in detail. The results of the investigation may be helpful to understanding basic plasma characteristics in space.

Experimental observations of supersonically flowing dusty plasmas and their interaction with an electrically biased circular cylinder are presented. Two methods for producing flowing dusty plasmas are described. The dusty plasma is produced in a DC anode glow discharge plasma. In Configuration I, a secondary dust cloud, initially formed near a biased grid, flowed away from the grid at supersonic speeds when the grid voltage was suddenly changed. In Configuration II, a pencil-like dust beam was produced using a nozzle-like (converging-diverging) electrostatic potential structure. Using Configuration I, the streaming dust encountered a biased cylinder (wire) whose axis was oriented transverse to the dust flow. The flowing dust particles were repelled by the electrostatic field of the negatively charged cylinder, and a dust void was formed around the cylinder. A detached electrohydrodynamic bow shock, akin to the Earth's magnetohydrodynamic bow shock, was formed on the upstream side of the cylinder, while an extended teardrop-shaped wake region was formed on the downstream side. Video imaging of the dust stream allowed for observations of the structure and evolution of the bow shock. Configuration II was used to produce a narrow beam of dust particles and observe how the beam was deflected around the biased cylinder. Three multimedia files (movies) of the observed phenomena are provided in the online Supplementary material.

In this paper, electrical and optical emission spectrometer (OES) characteristics of an Ar/air atmospheric-pressure plasma jet (APPJ) based on the plasma needle and plasma pencil systems were investigated and analyzed. Electrical measurement results showed that the breakdown and working voltage of the jet increased with the increase of the ratio of air/Ar, and the emission intensity of Ar* significantly decreased. For the plasma needle, when the ratio of air/Ar reached 1, the OES characteristics of Ar/air were similar to those of air plasma, and the main excited species was N2*. For the plasma pencil, when a little air impurity was added in Ar, the emission intensities of N2* species will be significantly increased. Based on these two APPJ systems, photoresist materials were etched, etched results showed that the etched surface was easier to be oxidized with the addition of air into Ar. The etched surface was cleaner with pure Ar plasma with scanning substrate methods than that with the Ar/air mixture. Etched results of higher ratios of air/Ar plasma were similar to those of air plasma.

The properties of non-planar (cylindrical and spherical) dust-acoustic solitary waves (DA SWs) and double layers (DLs) in an unmagnetised collisionless four-component dusty plasma, whose constituents are positively and negatively charged dust grains, super thermal electrons and Boltzmannian ions are investigated by deriving the modified Gardner (MG) equation. The well known reductive perturbation method is employed to derive the MG equation and solve it numerically to study the nonlinear features of the finite amplitude non-planar DA Gardner solitons (GSs) and DLs, which are shown to exist for κ around its critical value κc (where, κ is the super thermal parameter and κc is the value of κ corresponding to the vanishing of the nonlinear coefficient of the Korteweg-de Vries (K-dV) equation). It is seen that the properties of non-planar DA SWs and DLs are significantly differs in non-planar geometry from planar geometry. It is also found that the magnitude of the amplitude of positive and negative GSs decreases with κ and the width of positive and negative GSs increases with the increase of κ.

In this paper, we investigate a mathematical model for electric arcs. The model is based on the equations of magnetohydrodynamics, where the flow and heat transfer in a plasma is coupled to electrodynamics. Our approach neglects convection and yields a reaction–diffusion model that includes only the core phenomena of electric arcs: Ohmic heating and nonlinear electric conductivity. The equations exhibit interesting mathematical properties like non-unique steady states and instabilities that can be linked to electric arc properties. Additionally, a 3D axisymmetric simulation of the creation and extinction of an electric arc is presented based on a strongly coupled numerical algorithm for the non-convective model. The approach is especially suited for high-current arcs where strong coupling becomes necessary.

A relativistically hot electron, positron and ion (e–p–i) plasma relaxes to a triple curl Beltrami (TCB) field. The TCB field being the superposition of three Beltrami fields is characterized by three scale parameters and hence there exist multiscale structures in the system. It is shown that temperatures of the plasma constituents strongly affect the scale parameters. Generally, the scale parameters associated with the TCB field may be a combination of real and complex roots. The numerical results show that for given Beltrami parameters, an increase in the thermal energy of plasma particles could transform the real eigenvalues to complex ones. It is also observed that one component is more strongly affected relative to other components on increasing temperatures of plasma species. Two different vortices become the same at higher thermal energies. This suggests that it is possible to create high β (kinetic to magnetic pressure ratio) and fully diamagnetic plasma configurations. The study has a potential relevance to space, astrophysics and laboratory plasmas.

In a magnetized plasma containing charged dust whose motion is magnetized, one of the fundamental collective modes that could occur is the electrostatic dust cyclotron (EDC) wave with frequency near the dust cyclotron frequency. The EDC wave propagates nearly perpendicular to the magnetic field with a small parallel wave number, so that it can be driven unstable by ion flow along the magnetic field. Because unstable parallel wavelengths can be relatively large, this places constraints on the plasma device size. In this paper, we use linear kinetic theory to investigate the excitation of higher harmonic EDC waves that have wavelengths smaller than that of the fundamental mode. Collisions of charged particles with neutrals and Coulomb collisions including dust–dust collisions are taken into account. Constraints on possible parameter ranges arising from collisional effects or from requiring stability of other waves are discussed. Numerical results are presented for possible sets of laboratory dusty plasma parameters.

By using some physical approximations, distribution functions of spatial derivatives of components of an electric ionic microfield in plasmas have been theoretically evaluated. The particles are considered quasistatic. Only interactions between charged emitter and perturber ions are taken into account. Our theoretical results have been compared with those found in the literature. The few differences found are discussed. Some properties of distribution functions of spatial derivatives have been deduced from curves.

Geometric algebra (GA) is a recent broad mathematical framework incorporating synthetic and coordinate geometry, complex variables, quarternions, vector analysis, matrix algebra, spinors, tensors, and differential forms. It has been claimed to be a unified language for physics. GA is presented in the context of the Maxwell-Plasma system. In this formalism the divergence and curl differential operators are united in a single vector derivative, which is invertible, in the form of a first-order Green function. The four Maxwell equations can be combined into a single equation (for homogeneous and constant media) or into two equations involving the invertible vector derivative for more complex media. GA is applied to simple examples to illustrate the compactness of the notation and coordinate-free computations.

A nonlinear simulation of the E × B drifting electron laser (DEL) and the free-electron laser (FEL), in three dimensions, is presented for a prebunched electron beam to study efficiency enhancement. For the planar wiggler with flat pole faces, prebunching considerably shortens the saturation length, which favors the DEL compared to the FEL. Operation of the DEL with the planar wiggler with parabolic pole faces was not found to be possible due to the modulation of the E × B drift by the wiggler. However, simulation results of the FEL with this type of wiggler are reported.

Simple wire models have been proposed to simulate magnetic configurations in tokamaks. Here we consider electric currents in five parallel infinite wires to obtain double-null magnetic surfaces with specific choices of magnetic axis positions, triangularity, and elongation. As an example, we choose the position and the electric current of each wire to obtain magnetic surfaces similar to those expected in the tokamak international thermonuclear experimental reactor. Moreover, we also integrate the perturbed field line differential equation to simulate chaotic layers near the hyperbolic points and deposition patterns at the divertor plate observed in tokamaks. To simulate that, we add to the model a perturbing error field, due to asymmetries in the tokamak coils, and introduce a random collisional term to the field line mapping to reproduce escape pattern alterations due to particle collisions.

In this paper the spatial and temporal evolution of pulsed plasma sheath around a micropatterned surface is investigated using two-dimensional fluid model. The simulation region is considered as a micro-sized tip with rectangular cross section. The effects of rise time on electric field, ion density distributions, and dose of ions impacting the target are studied. It is shown that the plasma sheath has a balloon-like behavior in the early time stages.

In this paper, the effect of resonant helical magnetic field (RHF) and cold biased local limiter on plasma current, loop voltage, confinement time energy, poloidal beta, line emission intensity Hα, and magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) behavior based on Mirnov oscillations in the IR-T1 tokamak has been investigated. The experiments have been done in different regimes as cold biased local limiter, magnetic perturbation application, and both of these. At first the effect of the positive and negative bias voltage on plasma parameters and magnetic fluctuations detected by Mirnov coils has been investigated. Also, the effects of RHF on plasma parameters have been investigated in the edge region. Then the effects of applied biasing and RHF at the same time are analyzed. The bias voltage has been restricted to (−320 ≤ Vbias ≤ +320) and it has been applied with the limiter biasing that is fixed at r = 11.25 cm. These parameters have been measured using a diamagnetic loop, spectrometer, which is a visible light spectrometer for H-alpha, and Mirnov coils. The time-resolved frequency component analysis has been performed using short-time Fourier transforms. Fourier-based techniques and auto-correlation have been employed to analyze the frequency of MHD fluctuations. The results show that applied radial electric field at the plasma edge could control electromagnetic instabilities in the tokamak. In the positive biased regime, the amplitude of low-frequency Mirnov oscillations (<30 kHz) decreases after the application of biasing. Confinement time increases and line emission intensity decreases in all situations. The results are reversed when negative biasing has been applied. When RHF and biasing are applied to the plasma at the same time, the plasma parameters do not change any more compared to corresponding discharges with only RHF (L = 3). In other words, the amplitude of MHD activity can be totally controlled when a convenient biasing is applied to the limiter in the phases of current flat-top.

This paper investigates the modulational instability of a linearly polarized ultra-intense laser pulse propagating in electron–positron plasmas. Based on the wave equation, which contains vacuum polarization and magnetization effects, the nonlinear dispersion relation and the growth rate of instability are obtained and the effects of plasma number density and laser intensity on the growth rate are analyzed. Numerical results show that if the laser intensity is high enough, the modulational instability growth rate induced by vacuum polarization and magnetization nonlinearity can dominate the modulational instability growth rate induced by the nonlinearity associated with a relativistic effect and ponderomotive force.

The post-pinch generation of electron beam in a low energy Mather-type plasma focus (PF) device has been investigated. A fast-calibrated Rogowski coil was used to monitor the emission of electron beam. A two-channel diode X-ray spectrometer along with suitable filters provided the records of energy spectrum of X-ray radiation. Single time-period emissions of electron beam with duration of 100 to 20 ns were recorded in the high range of the device operating pressure (0.8–2 mbar). However, in the low range regime (0.2–0.8 mbar), occurrence of single spike electron beam with duration of 150 ± 50 ns, as well as multi-emission of electrons with duration of 400 ± 50 ns, was visible. A multi-peak of tube voltage along with multi-time-period radiation of X-rays dominated by copper lines (Cukα and Cukβ) was noticeable in the low-pressure range. The generated electron beam during the post-pinch phase of anomalous resistances is suspected to be the main source of X-ray radiation. This can also be related to the turbulence of the plasma column during the occurrence of anomalous resistances.