Nonreciprocal interactions drive intermittent melting of Coulomb clusters

Abstract

Complex systems out of equilibrium often experience intermittent oscillations between quiescent and highly dynamic states. While intermittency is usually driven by stochastic noise or external forcing, energy can also be sourced from field-mediated interactions between particles, which are often nonreciprocal and effectively violate Newton's 3rd law. Here we demonstrate how nonreciprocal interactions produce intermittency in clusters of charged micron-sized particles confined in a plasma sheath. Using three-dimensional particle tracking, we observe that vertical oscillations, induced by a noisy plasma environment, are parametrically coupled to the horizontal vibrational modes. Experiments and simulations show that nonreciprocal interactions strongly amplify this coupling, injecting energy into the system. This mechanism triggers explosive melting transitions from an ordered cluster to an ergodic gas-like state, and leads to intermittent switching between states over long time. Overall, our work identifies nonreciprocal interactions as a key mechanism through which strongly-coupled finite systems transform interaction-mediated activity into dynamical nonequilibrium states.