Recent and future research on complex plasma under microgravity conditions

Kurzfassung

Microparticles in a plasma are strongly influenced by gravity. This fact led to a parallel and complementary research on complex plasma under microgravity conditions. Experiments were and still are performed on short term parabolic flights, on sounding rockets and also on long term laboratories on the International Space Station ISS. The goal of this presentation is to review recent results from microgravity experiments obtained in different plasma setups performed by different groups from the community. Wave structures, interaction with projectiles or lasers are interesting phenomena which could be observed in short term experiments like parabolic flights (up to 20 sec µg). During long term experiments on the ISS stable structures like crystals or fluids could be investigated in detail as well as their phase transitions. The list of interesting results is very long and will be complemented by theoretical and numerical simulation investigations. For the future developments are going on which shall allow the continuation of the research under microgravity conditions. 2014 the launch of the European-Russian lab PK-4 is foreseen for the ISS. It will serve a large international science team for at least 4 years. Additionally, teams from America and Japan as well as from Russia and Germany are planning new long term labs for the farer future. Thus, it looks like that the long-term perspectives of this complementary research pillar of the complex plasma field are very positive and should open research possibilities to a large community.