Complex non-equilibrium dynamics in plasmas

Abstract

Two new forms of strongly coupled plasmas will be discussed. They have become possible to create and observe in the laboratory only recently and exhibit a wealth of intriguing complex behavior which can be studied, in many cases for the first time, experimentally. Plasmas, gases of charged particles, are universal in the sense that certain properties of complex behavior do only depend on ratios of characteristic parameters of the plasma, not on the parameters themselves. Therefore, it is of fundamental and far reaching consequence, to be able to create and observe a strongly coupled plasma since its behavior is paradigmatic for an entire class of plasmas.