Guest Editorial Dusty Plasmas in Colonial Williamsburg - IEEE Xplore

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON PLASMA SCIENCE, VOL. 35, NO. 2, APRIL 2007

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Guest Editorial Dusty Plasmas in Colonial Williamsburg

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HIS SPECIAL issue of the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON PLASMA SCIENCE focuses on the field of complex (or “Dusty”) plasmas. Many of the papers in this special issue were presented at the Eleventh Workshop on the Physics of Dusty Plasmas, which was hosted by the Naval Research Laboratory and Virginia Tech and held in historic Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia, in June 2006. The publication of this issue continues a tradition of special issues from April of 1994, 2001, and 2004 associated with the past workshops. It is intended to give a snapshot of the progress in dusty plasma research in recent years. The field of complex plasmas continues to grow and evolve into a mature area of plasma physics. Complex plasmas are systems composed of the usual plasma species, electrons, ions, and neutral particles, along with charged microparticles (commonly referred to as “dust”). The size of the microparticles can range from nanometers to several hundred micrometers in diameter. They become charged in the plasma by a variety of mechanisms such as collection of electrons and ions from the plasma, secondary electron emission, and UV ionization, to name a few. Depending upon the plasma conditions, dust charge states can range from as few as one or two elementary charges in space plasmas up to hundreds of thousands of elementary charges per dust grain in laboratory plasmas. Dusty plasmas are found in many astrophysical, industrial, and laboratory settings. The scale size of the corresponding dust “clouds” can range from as small as a few millimeters diameter in a laboratory device to vast astrophysical dust clouds. New discoveries are continuing to fuel excitement about the field of dusty plasmas. The presence of massive charged particles can dramatically alter the bulk plasma parameters, the plasma wave and particle dynamics, and can even lead to unique new states of matter. Consequently, understanding the behavior of these systems is important in a wide variety of disciplines. Recent topics that have generated a great deal of interest in the community include laboratory measurements of the kinetic temperature of dust grains, dust-surface interactions, the manipulation of dust grains, and the study of phase transitions in complex plasmas. Microgravity investigations, such as the planned PK-4 experiment, continue to have high priority in the field. Continued work in astrophysical plasmas has produced new insights into the formation and dynamics of planetary ring systems such as those around Saturn. The articles contributed to this special issue cover a number of these topics, including fundamental investigations of microparticle charging, and results of laboratory experiments and microgravity studies, as well

as dust in the astrophysical environment. Excellent theoretical and computational investigations are all well represented in this special issue. We wish to extend thanks to both the authors and the referees for their contribution to this special issue. Without their participation, this issue could not have been produced. We express our thanks to the dusty plasma community for their participation in the workshop and their help in making it such a success. For graduate students and new researchers to dusty plasmas, we believe that this enthusiastic participation is a sign of the health of this field and is indicative of the bright future of dusty plasma research. The guest editors would like to thank Dr. S. Gitomer, Editor of the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON PLASMA SCIENCE, for his encouragement and assistance in the production of this special issue. Without his input, this work could not have been completed. We also would like to thank A. Larkin, the IEEE Publications Review Coordinator, for all her patient assistance during the submission and review process. Finally, the guest editors would like to thank the Naval Research Laboratory, Virginia Tech, the U.S. Department of Energy-Office of Fusion Energy Science, and the International Union of Radio Science (URSI) for their support of the 11th Workshop on the Physics of Dusty Plasmas and of these proceedings.

Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TPS.2007.895208 0093-3813/$25.00 © 2007 IEEE

WILLIAM E. AMATUCCI, Guest Editor Plasma Physics Division Naval Research Laboratory Washington, DC 20375 USA WAYNE SCALES, Guest Editor Bradley Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University Blacksburg, VA 24061-0111 USA EDWARD THOMAS, JR ., Guest Editor Physics Department Auburn University Auburn, AL 36849-5311 USA GIOVANNI LAPENTA, Guest Editor Katholieke Universiteit Leuven 3000 Leuven, Belgium

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON PLASMA SCIENCE, VOL. 35, NO. 2, APRIL 2007

William E. Amatucci received the B.S. degrees in physics and mathematics from Saint Vincent College, Latrobe, PA, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in plasma physics from West Virginia University, Morgantown. After receiving the Ph.D. degree in 1994, he was awarded a National Research Council Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), Washington, DC. Following the completion of the postdoctoral fellowship, he served one year as a contractor with the Plasma Physics Division, NRL, before becoming a full-time staff member in 1997. He is currently the Head of the Space Experiments Section at NRL. His areas of research interest include plasma waves and instabilities, wave-particle interactions, plasma diagnostics, and the physics of dusty plasmas. Dr. Amatucci is a member of the American Physical Society, the American Geophysical Union, the International Union of Radio Science (URSI), and Sigma Xi.

Wayne Scales received the B.S. (with Honors) degree in electrical engineering from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech), Blacksburg, in 1982, the M.S. degree in electrical engineering and the M.S. degree in applied mathematics in 1984, and the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering and applied physics from Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, in 1989. He was an American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE) Postdoctoral Fellow at the Space Plasma Branch, U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC, from 1989 to 1992. He is currently a Professor of electrical and computer engineering at Virginia Tech. His research interests include radio science and upper atmospheric space plasma science. Dr. Scales was a Past Chairman of the Virginia Mountain Section, IEEE.

Edward Thomas, Jr. received the B.S. degree from Florida Institute of Technology, Melbourne, in 1989, the M.S. degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, in 1993, and the Ph.D. degree from Auburn University, Auburn, AL, in 1996. He is currently an Associate Professor with the Physics Department, Auburn University. He maintains active research projects on dusty plasmas and the growth and suppression of plasma instabilities in the presence of sheared plasma flows. Dr. Thomas is a member of the American Physical Society, the International Union of Radio Science (URSI), and the National Society of Black Physicists.

Giovanni Lapenta received the Ph.D. degree in plasma physics and nuclear engineering from Politecnico di Torino, Torino, Italy, in 1993. During his career, he has been a Research Associate in the Research Center and Laboratory, Italian Telecom, and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; a Research Professor in the Politecnico di Torino; and a Scientist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. He is currently a Professor of mathematics of space weather at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Leuven, Belgium. His research interests include the different aspects of applied and numerical mathematics; nuclear reactor physics; dusty plasmas; and space, laboratory, and astrophysical plasmas. Prof. Lapenta is a recipient of the R&D100 Prize in 2005 for his work on plasma simulation.