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Updated: May 14, 2026

Investigation of Early Plasma Evolution Induced by Ultrashort Laser Pulses
Published on: July 2, 2012
Scale-free behavior of a 2D complex plasma during rapid cooling
C A Knapek1, C Durniak, D Samsonov
1Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, Garching, Germany. knapek@mpe.mpg.de
Abstract:
Experimental evidence is presented for a scale-free transition from an unordered to an ordered state in a 2D complex plasma that differs from the KTHNY theory of phase transitions in 2D systems. The transition is characterized by the formation and growth of ordered domains. A fractal relationship is found between the domain areas and domain boundary lengths, which can be explained by a recent theoretical model. The experimental findings are supported by a molecular dynamics simulation of a 2D particle system.
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