Damping of Oscillations of Charged Particles in the Thermal Field in a Glow-Discharge Plasma

It is demonstrated experimentally that the thermophoretic force acting upon microparticles in the thermal field in complex plasma can be used for effective control of a cloud of charged microparticles formed in an electrostatic trap in the positive-column stratum of a glow discharge. Variation in the thermal-field temperature gradient is found to cause changes in the cloud location in plasma volume, its shape and size, along with suppression of oscillations of microparticles in the directions transverse with respect to this gradient. Microparticles of larger size experience stronger thermal action, and damping of microparticle oscillations occurs in conjunction with changes in the cloud spatial position. Obtained experimental results are consistent with theoretical concepts of the phenomena under consideration.