Formation of obliquely propagating dust-ion-acoustic shock waves due to dust charge fluctuation in magnetized nonthermal dusty plasma

A theoretical investigation is made on the formation as well as basic properties of dust-ion-acoustic (DIA) shock waves in a magnetized nonthermal dusty plasma consisting of immobile charge fluctuating dust, inertial ion fluid and nonthermal electrons. The reductive perturbation method is employed to derive the Korteweg-de Vries-Burgers equation governing the DIA shock waves. The combined effects of external static magnetic field, obliqueness, nonthermal electron distribution and dust charge fluctuation on the DIA shock waves are also investigated. It is shown that the dust charge fluctuation is a source of dissipation, and is responsible for the formation of the DIA shock waves. It is also observed that the combined effects of obliqueness, nonthermal electron distribution and dust charge fluctuation significantly modify the basic properties of the DIA shock waves. The implications of our results in space and laboratory dusty plasma situations are briefly discussed.     

Dust ion-acoustic solitary and shock waves in a dusty plasma with non-thermal electrons

A theoretical investigation of the one dimensional dynamics of nonlinear electrostatic dust ion-acoustic (DIA) waves in an unmagnetized dusty plasma consisting of ion fluid, non-thermal electrons and fluctuating immobile dust particles has been made by the reductive perturbation technique. The basic features of DIA solitary and shock waves are studied by deriving the Korteweg-de Vries (KdV) and KdV Burger equations, respectively. It is shown that the special patterns of nonlinear electrostatic waves are significantly modified by the presence of the non-thermal electron component. In particular, the rarefactive solitary and shock structures are found with smaller amplitude in comparison to the isothermal case. The transition from DIA solitary to shock waves is also studied which is related to the contributions of the dispersive and dissipative terms. It is found that the dust charge fluctuation is a source of dissipation, and is responsible for the formation of the dust ion-acoustic shock waves. Furthermore, the dissipative effect becomes important and may prevail over that of dispersion as the population of non-thermal electrons present decreases. The present investigation may be of relevance to electrostatic solitary structures observed in many space dusty plasma, such as Saturn’s E-ring.     

Effects of dust charge fluctuations and deviations from isothermality of electrons on nonlinear dust ion-acoustic waves

The effects of dust charge fluctuations and deviations from isothermality of electrons are incorporated in the study of nonlinear dust ion-acoustic waves. Deviations from isothermality of electrons are included in this model as a result of nonlinear resonant interaction of the electrostatic wave potential with electrons during its evolution. The basic properties of stationary structures are studied by employing the reductive perturbation method, and conditions for the formation of small but finite amplitude dust ion-acoustic solitary waves in the space dusty plasma situations are clearly explained. It is shown that a more depletion of the background free electrons owing to the attachment of these electrons to the surface of the dust grains during the charging process can lead to the formation of solitary waves with smaller amplitude. Furthermore, effects of the dust charge fluctuation and deviations from isothermality of electrons show a non-uniform behavior for the amplitude of solitary waves in transition from the Boltzmann electron distribution to a trapped electron one. It is also found that the dust charge fluctuation caused by trapped as well as free electrons is a source of dissipation, and is responsible for the formation of the dust ion-acoustic shock waves.     

Nonextensive dust acoustic waves in a charge varying dusty plasma

Our recent analysis on nonlinear nonextensive dust-acoustic waves (DA) [Amour and Tribeche in Phys. Plasmas 17:063702, 2010] is extended to include self-consistent nonadiabatic grain charge fluctuation. The appropriate nonextensive electron charging current is rederived based on the orbit-limited motion theory. Our results reveal that the amplitude, strength and nature of the nonlinear DA waves (solitons and shocks) are extremely sensitive to the degree of ion nonextensivity. Stronger is the electron correlation, more important is the charge variation induced nonlinear wave damping. The anomalous dissipation effects may prevail over that dispersion as the electrons evolve far away from their Maxwellian equilibrium. Our investigation may be of wide relevance to astronomers and space scientists working on interstellar dusty plasmas where nonthermal distributions are turning out to be a very common and characteristic feature.     

Characteristic of ion acoustic shock waves in a dissipative quantum pair plasma with dust particulates

The behavior of quantum dust ion-acoustic (QDIA) shocks in a plasma including inertialess quantum electrons and positrons, classical cold ions and stationary negative dust grains are studied, using a quantum hydrodynamic model (QHD). The effect of dissipation due to the viscosity of ions is taken into account. The propagation of small but finite amplitude QDIA shocks is governed by the Kortoweg-de Vries-Burgers (KdVB) equation. The existence regions of oscillatory and monotonic shocks will depend on the quantum diffraction parameter (H) and dust density (d) as well as dissipation parameter (η ₀). The effect of plasma parameters (d,H,η ₀), on these structures is investigated. Results indicate that the thickness and height of monotonic shocks; oscillation amplitude of the oscillatory shock wave and it’s wavelength effectively are affected by these parameters. Additionally, the possibility of propagation of both compressive and rarefactive shocks is investigated. It is found that depending on some critical value of dust density (d _c ), which is a function of H, compressive and rarefactive shock waves can’t propagate in model plasma. The present theory is applicable to analyze the formation of nonlinear structures at quantum scales in dense astrophysical objects.     

Time-dependent simulations of steady C-type shocks

Using a time-dependent multifluid, magnetohydrodynamic code, we calculated the structure of steady perpendicular and oblique C-type shocks in dusty plasmas. We included relevant processes to describe mass transfer between the different fluids, radiative cooling by emission lines and grain charging, and studied the effect of single- and multiple-sized grains on the shock structure. Our models are the first of oblique fast-mode molecular shocks in which such a rigorous treatment of the dust grain dynamics has been combined with a self-consistent calculation of the thermal and ionization structures including appropriate microphysics. At low densities, the grains do not play any significant rôle in the shock dynamics. At high densities, the ionization fraction is sufficiently low that dust grains are important charge and current carriers and, thus, determine the shock structure. We find that the magnetic field in the shock front has a significant rotation out of the initial upstream plane. This is most pronounced for single-sized grains and small angles of the shock normal with the magnetic field. Our results are similar to previous studies of steady C-type shocks showing that our method is efficient, rigorous and robust. Unlike the method employed in the previous most detailed treatment of dust in steady oblique fast-mode shocks, ours allow a reliable calculation even when chemical or other conditions deviate from local statistical equilibrium. We are also able to model transient phenomena.     

Shock waves in a dusty plasma with dust of opposite polarities

A four-component dusty plasma consisting of electrons, ions, and negative as well as positive dust particles has been considered. The basic features of shock waves that may exist in such a four-component dusty plasma have been theoretically investigated by the reductive perturbation method. The implications of our results in different regions of space (viz. cometary tails, mesosphere, Jupiter’s magnetosphere, etc.) are briefly discussed.     

Electrostatic shock structures in a multi-species nonthermal dusty plasma

Propagation of the dust-acoustic shock waves (DASWs) in a dusty plasma containing arbitrarily charged dust, positive and negative ions following nonthermal (Cairn’s) distribution, and electrons following q-(nonextensive) distribution, has been investigated. The reductive perturbation technique is used to derive the Burgers equation for dust’s fluid dynamics. The basic features (viz. polarity, amplitude, speed, etc.) of DASWs are found to be significantly modified due to the effects of arbitrarily charged dust, number density and temperatures of heavier/lighter ions, nonextensive electrons, and dust kinematic viscosity. The present investigation can be very effective for understanding the nonlinear characteristics of the DASWs in space and laboratory dusty plasmas.     

K-dV and Burgers’ equations on DA waves with strongly coupled dusty plasma

A rigorous theoretical investigation has been made on the nonlinear structures, mainly, dust-acoustic (DA) solitary and shock waves propagating in a strongly coupled dusty plasma consisting of strongly coupled correlated positively and negatively charged inertial cold dust fluid, weakly correlated inertialess Maxwellian electron and ion fluids. The presence of arbitrary (negative and positive) charged dust grains in such a plasma system causes the presence opposite potentials (positive and negative) DA solitary and shock structures and significantly modify it’s basic features. The results obtained from this analysis can be employed in understanding the nature of plasma waves both in laboratory and space plasma system.     

Arbitrary amplitude dust acoustic solitary waves in an electron-depleted dusty plasma with two high energy-tail ion distributions

Arbitrary amplitude dust acoustic waves (DAW’s) in two high energy-tail ion distributions are investigated. The electron number density has been assumed sufficiently depleted during the charging of the dust grains, on account of the attachment of the background plasma electrons on the surface of the dust grains. Our results reveal that under certain conditions, DA solitary waves with either negative or positive potential may be admitted. The high degree of suprathermalization of the relatively low temperature ion component favors the development of compressive localized structures. This behavior is preserved to a large extent in the small but finite amplitude regime. This means that the presence of additional relatively low temperature suprathermal ions does not only significantly modify the basic properties of DA structures, but also causes the existence of positive solitary potentials. This feature is completely new in a dusty plasma with two suprathermal ion components with widely disparate temperatures. Our results may be relevant to a number of space dusty plasma systems, particularly, the Saturn’s F-ring where electron depletion and suprathermality are thought to come into play.     

Time-fractional Burgers equation for dust acoustic waves in a two different temperatures dusty plasma

The reductive perturbation method has been used to derive the Burgers equation for dust acoustic shock waves in unmagnetized plasma having electrons, singly charged ions, hot and cold dust species with Boltzmann distributions for electrons and ions in the presence of the cold (hot) dust viscosity coefficients. The time-fractional Burgers equation is formulated using Euler-Lagrange variational technique and is solved using the variational-iteration method. The effect of time fractional parameter on the behavior of the shock waves in the dusty plasma has been investigated.     

Detection of ionospheric perturbation due to a soft gamma ray repeater SGR J1550-5418 by very low frequency radio waves

The properties of cylindrical and spherical dust acoustic (DA) solitary and shock waves in an unmagnetized electron depleted dusty plasma consisting of inertial dust fluid and ions featuring Tsallis statistics are investigated by employing the reductive perturbation technique. A Korteweg-de Vries Burgers (KdVB) equation is derived and its numerical solution is obtained. The effects of ion nonextensivity and dust kinematic viscosity on the basic features of DA solitary and shock waves are discussed in nonplanar geometry. It is found that nonextensive nonplanar DA waves behave quite differently from their one-dimensional planar counterpart.     

Shock structures in dusty plasma in the presence of strong electrostatic interaction

The fluid approach is employed to investigate theoretically the effect of strong electrostatic interaction on the dust acoustic (DA) shock waves near to the liquid-crystal phase transition in strongly coupled dusty plasma. The strong electrostatic interaction is modeled by effective electrostatic temperature which is considered as a dynamical variable. It is shown that the nonlinear evolution of dust acoustic shock waves in the present model is governed by a Burger equation, the coefficients in which are modified by strong coupling effect. Then, it is shown that how the perturbation of the effective electrostatic temperature modifies the basic properties of the DA shock waves.     

Head—on collision of nonlinear dust—acoustic solitary waves in dusty plasmas with dust of opposite polarities

The propagation and the head—on collision of nonlinear dust—acoustic solitary waves (DASWs) in dusty plasmas consisting of electrons, ions and negative as well as positive dust particles are investigated. Applying an extended Poincaré-Lighthill-Kuo (PLK) method, Kortwege-de Vries equations and analytical phase shifts after the head-on collision of two DASWs in dusty plasmas are obtained. Analytically and numerically, the relevance of the phase shifts and trajectories to the positive-to-negative dust number density ratio, the ratio of the ion number density to negative dust number density, negative-to-positive dust particle mass ratio, and the ion-to-electron temperature ratio effects is explicitly demonstrated. Moreover, the current findings are applied to different regions of space, viz. cometary tails, mesosphere, Jupiter’s magnetosphere.     

Nonlinear propagation of dust ion-acoustic waves in dusty multi-ion dense plasma

We have studied the nonlinear propagation of dust ion-acoustic (DIA) waves in a dusty multi-ion dense plasma (with the constituents being degenerate, either non-relativistic or ultra-relativistic) and the propagation of such waves have been investigated by the reductive perturbation method. From the stationary solution of the Korteweg de-Vries (K-dV) equation and Burgers’ equation the nonlinear waves (specially, solitary and shock waves) have been found to be formed in the dusty plasma system under consideration. It has shown that the basic features of these waves are significantly modified by both the positive and negative ions and dust number densities, the degenerate of the constituents. The implications of our results have been briefly discussed.     

Plasma Collective Effects in the Presence of Dust

Charged dust particles strongly affect collective processes in plasmas. Here we review recent advances in the theoretical study of collective effects in dusty plasmas. In particular, we consider processes of charging of dust by plasma currents, wave propagation and scattering, properties of Alfvén waves, and discuss collective effects in plasma-dust crystals.     

Dust drift shock waves with non-Maxwellian ion population in nonuniform collisional dusty plasmas in planetary environments

Linear and nonlinear propagation of dust drift waves are investigated in the presence of Cairns and Kappa distributed ion population and Boltzmannian electrons. It is found the frequency of the dust drift wave is greatest for the Cairns, intermediate for Kappa and the least for the Maxwellian distributed ions. Using the drift approximation, a nonlinear equation is derived for the dust drift shock waves which reduces to a Korteweg-de Vries-Burgers (KdVB)-like equation in the comoving frame of reference. The solution of the KdVB-like equation is obtained using the tanh method. It is found that the non-Maxwellian ion population, dust neutral collision frequency as well as the inverse dust density scale length inhomogeneity alter the propagation characteristics of the nonlinear dust drift shock waves. Interestingly, it is found that the non-Maxwellian ion population modifies the scale lengths over which the nonlinear structures are formed. The work presented here may be useful to understand the low frequency electrostatic shock waves in inhomogeneous dusty plasmas such as those found in planetary environments.