Dusty plasma ionization instability with ion drag

Abstract

The effect of ion drag on negatively charged dust grains is considered as a possible mechanism of excitation of the dust-acoustic (DA) ionization instability. It is found that DA waves are more and more damped as the coefficient for ion drag, μ, increases from zero to a critical value, μcrit. For μ>μcrit a zero-frequency (nonpropagating) perturbation grows when the drag of the ions on the dust grains overcomes the effect of the perturbation electric field.