Structure of confined Yukawa system (dusty plasma)

As a model of dusty plasmas, the structure of a Yukawa system confined in a one-dimensional external field is analyzed by molecular dynamics simulations and theoretical approaches. Particles form clear thin layers at low temperatures and the structure changes discretely with system parameters. The number and positions of layers and other characteristics are obtained as functions of dimensionless parameters. A simple sheet (shell) model with intralayer cohesive energy is shown to reproduce results of numerical experiments to a good accuracy.