Heat Dissipation and Temperature Gradients in Non-Equilibrium Microgravity Dusty Plasma

Classical thermodynamics shows the interaction between a system and its environment is assumed to be negligible compared to their internal energies. However, in strongly coupled systems this assumption no longer holds, and anomalous heat dissipation can arise. This means the conventional definitions of temperature, heat, and work require careful re-evaluation. Studies of microgravity dusty plasma from the PK-4 experiment on board the International Space Station have shown that strong coupling can influence heat transfer, leading to much slower relaxation to an equilibrium or steady state [1]. Dusty plasmas systems consist of neutral gas atoms, ions, electrons, and macroscopic charged particles, with these dust particles being highly charged and forming a strongly coupled system, which makes them an ideal system for the study of anomalous energy transfer. Here we construct velocity distribution functions to study temperature gradients and anomalous energy transfer using data from the PK-4 device.

[1] https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0244581