Bow shocks, bow waves, and dust waves – II. Beyond the rip point

Abstract

Dust waves are a result of gas-grain decoupling in a stream of dusty plasma that flows past a luminous star. The radiation field is sufficiently strong to overcome the collisional coupling between grains and gas at a "rip-point", where the ratio of radiation pressure to gas pressure exceeds a critical value of roughly 1000. When the rip point occurs outside the hydrodynamic bow shock, a separate dust wave may form, decoupled from the gas shell, which can either be drag-confined or inertia-confined, depending on the stream density and relative velocity. In the drag-confined case, there is a minimum stream velocity of roughly 60 km/s that allows a steady-state stagnant drift solution for the dust wave apex. For lower relative velocities, the dust dynamics close to the axis exhibit a limit cycle behavior (rip and snap back) between two different radii. Strong coupling of charged grains to the plasma's magnetic field can modify these effects, but for a quasi-parallel field orientation the results are qualitatively similar to the non-magnetic case. For a quasi-perpendicular field, on the other hand, the formation of a decoupled dust wave is strongly suppressed.