A survey of dusty plasma physics
Top Cited Papers
- 20 April 2001
- journal article
- research article
- Published by AIP Publishing in Physics of Plasmas
- Vol. 8 (5) , 1791-1803
- https://doi.org/10.1063/1.1343087
Abstract
Two omnipresent ingredients of the Universe are plasmas and charged dust. The interplay between these two has opened up a new and fascinating research area, that of dusty plasmas, which are ubiquitous in different parts of our solar system, namely planetary rings, circumsolar dust rings, the interplanetary medium, cometary comae and tails, as well as in interstellar molecular clouds, etc. Dusty plasmas also occur in noctilucent clouds in the arctic troposphere and mesosphere, cloud-to-ground lightening in thunderstorms containing smoke-contaminated air over the United States, in the flame of a humble candle, as well as in microelectronic processing devices, in low-temperature laboratory discharges, and in tokamaks. Dusty plasma physics has appeared as one of the most rapidly growing fields of science, besides the field of the Bose–Einstein condensate, as demonstrated by the number of published papers in scientific journals and conference proceedings. In fact, it is a truly interdisciplinary science because it has many potential applications in astrophysics (viz. in understanding the formation of dust clusters and structures, instabilities of interstellar molecular clouds and star formation, decoupling of magnetic fields from plasmas, etc.) as well as in the planetary magnetospheres of our solar system [viz. Saturn (particularly, the physics of spokes and braids in the B and F rings), Jupiter, Uranus, Neptune, and Mars] and in strongly coupled laboratory dusty plasmas. Since a dusty plasma system involves the charging and dynamics of massive charged dust grains, it can be characterized as a complex plasma system providing new physics insights. In this paper, the basic physics of dusty plasmas as well as numerous collective processes are discussed. The focus will be on theoretical and experimental observations of charging processes, waves and instabilities, associated forces, the dynamics of rotating and elongated dust grains, and some nonlinear structures (such as dust ion-acoustic shocks, Mach cones, dust voids, vortices, etc). The latter are typical in astrophysical settings and in several laboratory experiments. It appears that collective processes in a complex dusty plasma would have excellent future perspectives in the twenty-first century, because they have not only potential applications in interplanetary space environments, or in understanding the physics of our universe, but also in advancing our scientific knowledge in multidisciplinary areas of science.Keywords
This publication has 122 references indexed in Scilit:
- On the role of charged dust in mesospheric electric fieldsGeophysical Research Letters, 2000
- Drift‐Alfvén vortices in dusty plasmasJournal of Geophysical Research, 1999
- Dusty plasma induced by solar radiation under microgravitational conditions: An experiment on board the Mir orbiting space stationJournal of Experimental and Theoretical Physics, 1998
- Micron‐sized dust particles detected in the outer solar system by the Voyager 1 and 2 plasma wave instrumentsGeophysical Research Letters, 1997
- The effect of a dust-size distribution on dust acoustic wavesJournal of Plasma Physics, 1997
- Dispersion of Plasma Dust Acoustic Waves in the Strong-Coupling RegimePhysical Review Letters, 1996
- First detection of charged dust particles in the Earth's mesosphereJournal of Geophysical Research, 1996
- Charging of Dust Grains in a PlasmaPhysical Review Letters, 1994
- Polar mesosphere summer radar echoes: Observations and current theoriesReviews of Geophysics, 1993
- Limitation of electrostatic charging of dust particles in a plasmaGeophysical Research Letters, 1984