Charging of dust grain clusters in flowing plasmas

摘要

Dusty plasmas are ionized gases containing charged dust grains and exhibiting completely new physical features such as charge variability on grain particles, collective grain-grain interactions, self-organization, and formation of various stable structures. One of the most important parameters is the charge on dust grains. The charge on dust particles can fluctuate randomly in response to fluctuations in plasma parameters. Dusty plasma can be strongly coupled, i.e., the interaction potential energy between dust grains can exceed their kinetic energy. The formation of dusty plasma crystals, fullerene-like and nano-tube dust structures, and large dust agglomerates was observed. The information about charging of an isolated grain can not be used for interpretation of the dust charging in the presence of many grains. The main issue is to understand grain-induced collective processes in the charging of dust grains when their collective interactions become important.