Stereoscopy of dust density waves under microgravity: Velocity distributions and phase-resolved single-particle analysis

Experiments on dust-density waves have been performed in dusty plasmas under the microgravity conditions of parabolic flights. Three-dimensional measurements of a dust density wave on a single particle level are presented. The dust particles have been tracked for many oscillation periods. A Hilbert analysis is applied to obtain trajectory parameters such as oscillation amplitude and three-dimensional velocity amplitude. While the transverse motion is found to be thermal, the velocity distribution in wave propagation direction can be explained by harmonic oscillations with added Gaussian (thermal) noise. Additionally, it is shown that the wave properties can be reconstructed by means of a pseudo-stroboscopic approach. Finally, the energy dissipation mechanism from the kinetic oscillation energy to thermal motion is discussed and presented using phase-resolved analysis.