In-flight calibration of mesospheric rocket plasma probes.

Many effects and factors can influence the efficiency of a rocket plasma probe. These include payload charging, solar illumination, rocket payload orientation and rotation, and dust impact induced secondary charge production. As a consequence, considerable uncertainties can arise in the determination of the effective cross sections of plasma probes and measured electron and ion densities.

Dynamic Mach cone as a diagnostic method in reactive dusty plasma experiments.

We demonstrate how the observation of dynamic Mach cones in dusty plasma experiments allows one to follow the evolution of the dust acoustic wave velocity as charges on dust particles change, or as their mass changes. In experiments in which only the charge is changing due to, e.g.