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Updated: Jun 8, 2026

Investigation of Early Plasma Evolution Induced by Ultrashort Laser Pulses
Published on: July 2, 2012
Threshold phenomena in a throbbing complex plasma
Maxime Mikikian1, Lénaïc Couëdel, Marjorie Cavarroc
1GREMI, Groupe de Recherches sur l'Energétique des Milieux Ionisés, UMR6606, CNRS/Université d'Orléans, 14 rue d'Issoudun, BP6744, 45067 Orléans Cedex 2, France. maxime.mikikian@univ-orleans.fr
Abstract:
In complex plasmas, the trapped dust particle cloud is often characterized by a central dust-free region ("void"). The void induces a spatial inhomogeneity of the dust particle distribution and is at the origin of many intricate unstable phenomena. One type of this kind of behavior is the so-called heartbeat instability consisting of successive contractions and expansions of the void. This instability is characterized by a strong nonlinear dynamics which can reveal the occurrence of incomplete sequences corresponding to failed contractions. Experimental results based on high-speed imaging are presented for the first time and underline this threshold effect in both the dust cloud motion and the evolution of the plasma light emission.
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