Effect of grain-size distribution on the energy loss of a pair of charged projectiles in a dust-contaminated plasma

Abstract

Analytical and numerical results are presented for the slowing down of a pair of heavy test charge projectiles through a multicomponent, dust-contaminated plasma. The correlation and interference effects of two collinear and noncollinear projectiles on electrostatic potential and energy loss are studied for a Maxwellian distribution and a special class of physically reasonable size distributions. The energy loss behavior versus projectile velocity of noncollinear projectiles is also examined for various orientations. It is found that the energy loss for Maxwellian distribution (for large value of spectral index κ) is larger compared to that for generalized Lorentzian distribution. It is also observed that for smaller values of κ, the test charge projectile gains energy instead of losing. These results would be useful for the understanding of the energy loss mechanism, which might be responsible for the coagulation of dust particles in molecular clouds, in the ion-beam driven inertial confinement fusion scheme and in dust plasma crystal formation, etc.