Experimental, simulation, and theoretical studies of nonplanar pinned solitons in a dusty plasma

We report on the first experimental observations of cylindrical and spherical pinned solitons in a flowing dusty plasma medium. The experiments are performed in the inverted Π-shaped DPEx device in which a dusty plasma is made to flow over a charged object (of cylindrical or spherical shape). It is found that over a range of supersonic velocities, 2-D half-cylindrical or 3-D half-spherical soliton structures get excited and remain attached to the front of the charged object. An important finding is the multi-humped nature of the spatial structure of these solitons and a decrease in the number of humps with increasing flow velocity. To provide theoretical support to these experimental findings, we perform molecular dynamics simulations and also construct and numerically solve a model forced Kadomtsev–Petviashvili equation appropriate for the experimental conditions. The theoretical results show good qualitative agreement with the observations and provide valuable insights into the origin and dynamics of these nonlinear structures.