2D melting of plasma crystals: equilibrium and nonequilibrium regimes.

Comprehensive experimental investigations of melting in two-dimensional complex plasmas were carried out. Different experiments were performed in steady and unsteady heating regimes. We demonstrate an Arrhenius dependence of the defect concentration on the kinetic temperature in steady-state experiments, and show the evidence of metastable quenching in unsteady experiments, where the defect concentration follows a power-law temperature scaling. In all experiments, independent indicators suggest a grain-boundary-induced melting scenario.