Dusty plasma experiment to confirm an expression for the decay of autocorrelation functions

Statistical physicists recently proposed an expression for an autocorrelation function (ACF) [Belousov and Cohen, Phys. Rev. E 94, 062124 (2016)] that has, until now, not been tested experimentally. The expression captures the early behavior of the ACF decay, when the ACF is flattened. Using experimental data from a nonequilibnum steady-state dusty plasma, we confirm that the expression's use extends to liquidlike strongly coupled plasmas. A transition in the shape of the ACF is identified, and we suggest that it corresponds to the onset of collisional scattering.