My Research
Yukawa systems provide a testing ground for a large number of fundamental concepts in statistical physics. The formation of dust crystals may be a typical example of interesting behaviours of Yukawa systems . In typical laboratory experiments dusty plasma contain electrons, ions, charged micro-particles, and a neutral gas background. Experimentally the charged microparticles or dust particles can be individually visualised. They interact electrostatically, and the background environment of ions and electrons provide the shielding to their charges. Dusty plasmas can be modelled as Yukawa systems which is a collection of particles interacting through Yukawa (i.e. screened Coulomb ) pair potential.
We study the statistical and thermodynamic properties of strongly coupled Dusty plasma at equilibrium and non-equilibrium. We have recently reported melting of a Dusty plasma system under an external drive (Phys. Rev. E (80), 056408, 2009).