Understanding the spatiotemporal dynamics of plasma filaments at high magnetic fields via spatiotemporal image analysis

Recent experiments in the Magnetized Dusty Plasma eXperiment (MDPX) at Auburn University have shown that capacitively coupled, radio frequency generated plasmas form different kinds of filamentary structures when exposed to a high enough magnetic field (B > 1 T). Essentially, these filaments are non-uniformities in the plasma, that appear as bright vertical elongated structures parallel to the magnetic field, formed between two parallel plate electrodes. When observed from the top, they can have different shapes such as circular, s-shaped two-arm, and three-arm or four-arm spirals, indicating that these structures might be azimuthal eigenmodes of some underlying instability mechanism. A host of spatiotemporal dynamics have been identified including spinning about a stable axis, global motion due to filament-filament interaction, filament merger and changing shapes from one to the other. Here we will use different image analysis techniques to understand the details of the spatiotemporal variations of these filaments. This will help us understand the fundamental physics that lead to structure formation and the ensuing dynamics.