Dust voids (holes) in a charge-varying complex plasma with non-isothermal trapped electrons

Abstract

AbstractThe recent analysis of dust voids (Mamun, A. A. and Shukla, P. K. 2005 J. Plasma Phys.71, 143) is extended to include self-consistent electron trapping and dust charge variation. It is found that under certain conditions the effect of dust charge variation can be quite important. In particular, it may be noted that the dust charge variation leads to an additional enlargement of the nonlinear dust voids. The effects of ion/electron temperature and trapping parameter on the properties of these nonlinear dust voids are briefly discussed. As the dust particle number density is increased, the depth, as well as the width, of the dust void decreases and the additional enlargement (due to dust charge perturbations) becomes less pronounced. Furthermore, these dust voids exhibit smaller widths than those involving isothermal electrons.