#Dusty Plasma
The presence of dust particles in various realistic case, generated major interest in various physical applications; starting from dry powder coatings, ionospheric research, micro electronics, semiconductor and nanoparticle physics and so on. Dusty plasmas are mainly ionized gases with some macroscopic charged dust particles (either positive or negative depending upon the dust surrounding and charging mechanisms). Inclusion of micron sized dust grains, in a normal electron-ion plasma, completely changes and tangles the system properties due to various charging mechanisms and correlation effects between the constituents (hence often labeled with the term ‘complex system’); which explores a fascinating research field in understanding various physical phenomena.
#Strongly Coupled Dusty Plasma
The electromagnetic Coulomb force couples the various constituents present in dusty plasma and due to the large amount of charge on a single dust grain, the effect of correlations become very significant. These kinds of systems, commonly labeled as strongly coupled plasma, can even exhibit viscoelastic nature showing both the solid and fluid like signatures. In recent times, strongly coupled dusty plasma has been considered as a major interdisciplinary research field to explore the fundamental physics of the strongly coupled Coulomb and Yukawa systems.
#Shear velocity driven phenomena
Shear velocity, also known as friction velocity, is a form with which shear stress can be re-written in the units of velocity. It is a very useful tool in fluid mechanics to understand the velocity of a flow in a stream where different shear layers possess different velocities with respect to each other. Shear velocity is utilized in description of diffusion and dispersion of the suspended particles, tracers, and contaminants in a fluid. Shear driven phenomena has been getting a serious attention for studying dusty plasma dynamics both theoretically and experimentally in the recent past. The generation of shear flow in complex systems (dusty plasma) enables to measure shear viscosity of those systems. The interplay between vorticity and shear flow in plasma can excite or stabilize many instabilities and the majority work of my thesis works revolved around this.
#Non-Newtonian Fluids
The non-Newtonian properties of plasmas in presence of velocity shear are emerging as an interesting field of study in plasma physics to obtain the information about the structure and properties of such complex systems under consideration. The viscosity, in general, always shows non-Newtonian characteristics in most of the fluids and complex systems such as dusty plasmas.
#Linear and Nonlinear Phenomena
Plasma is a highly non-linear system, where various physical phenomena occurs and interacts with each other simultaneously. The nonlinear study of this complex system explores the physical characteristics and stability properties of the system. Soliton type, shock type structures can propagate through the system due to the nonlinearity and dispersive effects present in the system.