Charge distribution over dust particles in a flowing plasma
- Department of Education Building, University of Lucknow, Lucknow 226007 (India)
This paper presents an analytical model for the physical understanding of the charge distribution on dust particles in meso-thermal flow of plasmas where the flow speed of plasma relative to the dust particle is larger than the ion thermal speed but much less than the thermal speed of electrons. The formulation is based on the master difference equation for population balance and the number and energy balance considerations, allowing the charge to be only an integral multiple (positive or negative) of the electronic charge. The kinetics for (i) dark complex plasmas where accretion of electrons/ionic species are the dominant charging mechanisms and (ii) illuminated complex plasmas where photoemission significantly contributes to dust charging has been developed. The expression for the mean energy associated with the accretion of ionic species over dust gains in meso-thermal flow of complex plasmas has been derived and employed to obtain the charge distribution and other relevant plasma parameters. The high speed of meso-thermal flow of the plasma influences the dust charging towards more positive character and leads to significant reduction in electron and ion densities, even in the presence of photoemission from dust grains.
- OSTI ID:
- 22047010
- Journal Information:
- Physics of Plasmas, Vol. 18, Issue 10; Other Information: (c) 2011 American Institute of Physics; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 1070-664X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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