We report the first observation of the Mach cones excited by a larger
microparticle (projectile) moving through a cloud of smaller microparticles
(dust) in a complex plasma with neon as a buffer gas under microgravity
conditions. A collective motion of the dust particles occurs as propagation of
the contact discontinuity. The corresponding speed of sound was measured by a
special method of the Mach cone visualization. The measurement results are
incompatible with the theory of ion acoustic waves. The estimate for the
pressure in a strongly coupled Coulomb system and a scaling law for the complex
plasma make it possible to derive an evaluation for the speed of sound, which
is in a reasonable agreement with the experiments in complex plasmas.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures, 1 tabl
