Excitation of nonlinear wave patterns in flowing complex plasmas

We describe experimental observations of nonlinear wave structures excited by a supersonic mass flow of dust particles over an electrostatic potential hill in a dusty plasma medium. The experiments have been carried out in a Π− shaped experimental (DPEx) device in which micron sized Kaolin particles are embedded in a DC glow discharge Argon plasma. An equilibrium dust cloud is formed by maintaining the pumping speed and gas flow rate and the dust flow is induced either by suddenly reducing the height of a potential hill or by suddenly reducing the gas flow rate. For a supersonic flow of the dust fluid precursor solitons are seen to propagate in the upstream direction while wake structures propagate in the downstream direction. For flow speeds with a Mach number greater than 2 the dust particles flowing over the potential hill give rise to dispersive dust acoustic shock waves. The experimental results compare favorably with model theories based on forced K-dV and K-dV Burger’s equations.