HR: 0800h
AN: SA11A-0302    [Abstracts]
TI: Investigation of Dust Charging Effects on Low-Frequency Ion Waves in Magnetized Dusty Plasmas
AU: * Chen, C
EM: chenc@vt.edu
AF: Virginia Tech, 302 Whittemore Hall, Blacksburg, VA 24061-0111, United States
AU: Scales, W
EM: wscales@vt.edu
AF: Virginia Tech, 302 Whittemore Hall, Blacksburg, VA 24061-0111, United States
AB: Dust charge fluctuations generated in a localized dust cloud expanding into background plasma across a magnetic field is considered in investigation. This configuration has important applications for dusty plasmas in space and in the laboratory. Under these circumstances, the charging time of the dust grains may be comparable to the timescales for development of fluctuations due to plasma instabilities. Therefore, dust charge fluctuations are expected to play an important role in plasma collective effects in this case. A two-dimensional numerical model that has been developed to study the evolution and dynamics of an expanding dust cloud released into plasma across the magnetic field. The background plasma electrons and ions are treated as a fluid whose density is reduced by dust charging. Fourier spectral methods with a predictor corrector time advance are used to temporally evolve the background plasma electron and ion equations. The dust is treated with a Particle-In-Cell (PIC) model in which the dust charge varies with time according to the standard dust charging model. Simulation results show that as the dust expands into the background plasma and charges up, a strongly sheared ambipolar electric field develops across the dust cloud boundary. Some of the processes that are also investigated include dust charging, reduction of the background plasma density due to dust charging. The consequences of the results of this investigation on understanding dust charge fluctuation effects in general are also discussed.
DE: 0560 Numerical solutions (4255)
DE: 0644 Numerical methods
DE: 2461 Plasma interactions with dust and aerosols (7849)
DE: 7807 Charged particle motion and acceleration
SC: SPA-Aeronomy [SA]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting