Revealing the supercritical dynamics of dusty plasmas and their liquid-like to gas-like dynamical crossover

Abstract

Dusty plasmas represent a powerful playground to study the collective dynamics of strongly coupled systems with important interdisciplinary connections to condensed matter physics. Due to the pure Yukawa repulsive interaction between dust particles, dusty plasmas do not display a traditional liquid-vapor phase transition, perfectly matching the definition of a supercritical fluid. Using molecular dynamics simulations, we verify the supercritical nature of dusty plasmas and reveal the existence of a dynamical liquid-like to gas-like crossover which perfectly matches the salient features of the Frenkel line in classical supercritical fluids. We present several diagnostics to locate this dynamical crossover spanning from local atomic connectivity, shear relaxation dynamics, velocity autocorrelation function, heat capacity, and various transport properties. All these different criteria well agree with each other and are able to successfully locate the Frenkel line in both 2D and 3D dusty plasmas. In addition, we propose the unity ratio of the instantaneous transverse sound speed $C_T$ to the average particle speed ${\bar{v}}_p$, i.e., $C_T/{\bar{v}}_p=1$, as a new diagnostic to identify this dynamical crossover. Finally, we observe an emergent degree of universality in the collective dynamics and transport properties of dusty plasmas as a function of the screening parameter and dimensionality of the system. Intriguingly, the temperature of the dynamical transition is independent of the dimensionality, and it is found to be always $20$ times of the corresponding melting point. Our results open a new path for the study of single particle and collective dynamics in plasmas and their interrelation with supercritical fluids in general.

v1: comments are welcome

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Cited by in corpus (18)

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• Freezing density scaling of transport coefficients in the Weeks-Chandler-Andersen fluid
• Observation of fast sound in two-dimensional dusty plasma liquids
• Quasi-universal behaviour of shear relaxation times in simple fluids
• Holographic study of shear viscosity and butterfly velocity for magnetic field-driven quantum criticality
• Modified Bridgman formula for the thermal conductivity of complex (dusty) plasma fluids
• Revisiting the question of what instantaneous normal modes tell us about liquid dynamics
• Weak decaying collective-excitation approximation for Yukawa one-component plasmas
• Note: Shoving model and the glass transition in one-component plasma
• Variational approach to Yukawa fluids. II. Instantaneous elastic moduli and sound velocities
• Variational approach to Yukawa fluids. I. Thermodynamics
• Excess entropy scaling of the transverse sound speed in simple fluids
• Physical Signatures of Supercritical Fluid Boundaries
• Separation of bi-dispersed microspheres in dusty plasma ratchet experiments