PK-4 is an experiment designed to investigate complex plasmas (low-temperature plasmas containing microparticles, e.g. dust grains) in a combined dc/rf discharge under microgravity conditions on board of the international space station. Within the 35th and 36th ESA parabolic flight campaigns first experiments under microgravity conditions in a specially designed experiment set-up have been performed. A shear flow produced between the penetrating clouds as well as lane formation were observed. Lane formation is a non-equilibrium phenomena which takes place if a certain particle density is exceeded, for which it is easier for the particles to propagate if they form lanes. A similar behavior can be observed for pedestrians moving in large crowds. Finally, a specific dust wave with a steep particle density variation, a so called soliton, has been observed. Additional experiments are proposed for future parabolic flght campaigns.
Parabolic flight experiments with PK-4
Parabolische Flugexperimente mit PK-4
2006
4 Seiten, 5 Bilder, 8 Quellen
Conference paper
English
New Parabolic Flight Platform for Microgravity Experiments
TIBKAT | 2015
|Springer Verlag | 2021
|