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

Abstract

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.