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Coupling of an acoustic wave to shear motion due to viscous heating
Journal article   Peer reviewed

Coupling of an acoustic wave to shear motion due to viscous heating

Bin Liu and J Goree
Physics of plasmas, Vol.23(7), p.73707
07/2016
DOI: 10.1063/1.4956444
url
https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1267532View
Open Access

Abstract

Viscous heating due to shear motion in a plasma can result in the excitation of a longitudinal acoustic wave, if the shear motion is modulated in time. The coupling mechanism is a thermal effect: time-dependent shear motion causes viscous heating, which leads to a rarefaction that can couple into a longitudinal wave, such as an acoustic wave. This coupling mechanism is demonstrated in an electrostatic three-dimensional (3D) simulation of a dusty plasma, in which a localized shear flow is initiated as a pulse, resulting in a delayed outward propagation of a longitudinal acoustic wave. This coupling effect can be profound in plasmas that exhibit localized viscous heating, such as the dusty plasma we simulated using parameters typical of the PK-4 experiment. We expect that a similar phenomenon can occur with other kinds of plasma waves.

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