Self-Diffusion in 2D Dusty Plasma Liquids: Numerical Simulation Results

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We perform Brownian dynamics simulations for studying the self-diffusion in two-dimensional (2D) dusty plasma liquids, in terms of both mean-square displacement and velocity autocorrelation function (VAF). Super-diffusion of charged dust particles has been observed to be most significant at infinitely small damping rate $γ$ for intermediate coupling strength, where the long-time asymptotic behavior of VAF is found to be the product of $t^{-1}$ and $\exp{(-γt)}$. The former represents the prediction of early theories in 2D simple liquids and the latter the VAF of a free Brownian particle. This leads to a smooth transition from super-diffusion to normal diffusion, and then to sub-diffusion with an increase of the damping rate. These results well explain the seemingly contradictory scattered in recent classical molecular dynamics simulations and experiments of dusty plasmas.
10 pages 5 figures, accepted by PRL

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