Comments on other dust structures: Concluding remarks

Abstract

Formation of structures is one of the most general phenomenon in complex plasmas and includes ordered as well as disordered grain distributions. The universal structurization instability operates also for both ordered and disordered states. Such an instability does not exist in an ordinary plasma without dust. Contrary to ordinary plasmas, dusty plasmas have a large rate of dissipation. Let us remind that ordinary plasmas is often unstable due to low rate of binary collisions. There was a long-term investigation on ordinary plasmas which led to conclusion that almost only binary particle collisions can thermalize their particle distribution (if contacts with thermal surfaces are not important). In ordinary plasmas, even small deviations in particle distribution from thermal distributions create instabilities. Complex plasmas, contrary to ordinary plasmas, are very dissipative systems that need a constant supply of energy and particles in order to exist. This opens a door for the universal instability related to the structure formation and to self-organization processes in ordered as well as in disordered states. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2008.