Quick search Find article
Quick search
Find article
Deutsche Physikalische Gessellschaft IOP Institute of Physics

From plasma crystals and helical structures towards inorganic living matter

V N Tsytovich1,5, G E Morfill2, V E Fortov3, N G Gusein-Zade1, B A Klumov2 and S V Vladimirov4

Show affiliations


Complex plasmas may naturally self-organize themselves into stable interacting helical structures that exhibit features normally attributed to organic living matter. The self-organization is based on non-trivial physical mechanisms of plasma interactions involving over-screening of plasma polarization. As a result, each helical string composed of solid microparticles is topologically and dynamically controlled by plasma fluxes leading to particle charging and over-screening, the latter providing attraction even among helical strings of the same charge sign. These interacting complex structures exhibit thermodynamic and evolutionary features thought to be peculiar only to living matter such as bifurcations that serve as 'memory marks', self-duplication, metabolic rates in a thermodynamically open system, and non-Hamiltonian dynamics. We examine the salient features of this new complex 'state of soft matter' in light of the autonomy, evolution, progenity and autopoiesis principles used to define life. It is concluded that complex self-organized plasma structures exhibit all the necessary properties to qualify them as candidates for inorganic living matter that may exist in space provided certain conditions allow them to evolve naturally.


PACS

87.23.Kg Dynamics of evolution

87.10.-e General theory and mathematical aspects

87.15.N- Properties of solutions of macromolecules

Subjects

Biological physics

Environmental and Earth science

Dates

Issue 8 (August 2007)

Received 19 April 2007

Published 14 August 2007



Users also read

What's this?
This innovative new feature generates a list of articles 'also read' by other users based on them reading the original article. Article abstracts citations and references are all considered and weighted accordingly. We hope that this will help you find relevant papers for your research.

  1. Magnetic field generation by coherent turbulence structures
  2. Plasma medicine: an introductory review
  3. PKE-Nefedov: plasma crystal experiments on the International Space Station

Related review articles

What's this?
View review articles related to this research to gain an insight into the key trends in this subject area. Related review articles are selected based on PACS/MSC codes, and are no more than three years old.

  1. 21st century: what is life from the perspective of physics?

View by subject




Export








Please login to access our web services, or create an account if you don't yet have one.

You must have cookies enabled in your web browser to be able to login.

Username
Password

Forgotten your password? Get a new one here.