Final Scientific/Technical Report for "Strongly-Coupled Dusty Plasmas"

The subject of the project is the basic-plasma physics topic of strongly-coupled plasmas, as studied experimentally using dusty plasmas. This topic is highly interdisciplinary, with significant overlap with astrophysics, space physics, and condensed matter physics. Among the successes of this project during the most recent four-year period are the 23 papers were produced for peer-reviewed scientific journals. These papers mostly report experiments, as well as some numerical simulations. Coauthors of the papers include collaborators in Germany, Hungary, and Russia, as well as the U.S. Research topics included traditional plasma physics themes such as transport, waves, instabilities, and experimental diagnostics. They also included interdisciplinary topics of melting (condensed matter physics) and rarefied gas dynamics (fluid mechanics). All of the research topics were chosen to have a high impact. Our success in achieving a high impact is demonstrated by the seven papers published in Physical Review Letters over a four-year period, and a significant number of invited talks. The project included a broader-impact element that included not only training of graduate students and public dissemination of research results, but also an outreach program. The outreach Included presentations motivated by the sound-wave experiments in this project for the 'Family Science Adventures' (for children and parents of Iowa City area) and hands-on experiments at a K12 school (3rd and 4th grades in 2007, and 5th and 6th grades in 2008)