Structure of Dusty Plasma as Yukawa System Confined in One-Dimensional External Fields

As a model of dusty plasmas in external fields, Yuka.wa system in a one-dimensional external field is analyzed by molecular dynamics simulations and theoretical approaches. It is shown that particles form clear thin layers (sheets) at low temperatures and the number of layers changes discretely with characteristic parameters of the system, accompanying the rearrangements of whole system from nearly equipartitioned layers to also nearly equipartitioned layers. The number, positions and populations of layers are obtained as functions of characteristic parameters. The shell (sheet) model which has been successful for confined one-component plasmas is extended to this system and results of numerical experiments are reproduced to a good accuracy. The effect of cohesive energy in each layer is of essential importance to reproduce discrete changes in the number of sheets.