Image charge effects on bremsstrahlung radiation from electron–dust grain scatterings in dusty plasmas

Abstract

Low energy bremsstrahlung process in electron–dust grain Coulomb scatterings in dusty plasmas is investigated using the classical trajectory method. Attractive interaction between the projectile electron and induced image charge inside the dust grain by the projectile electron is included to obtain the total interaction potential between the projectile electron and the dust particle. The classical straight-line trajectory method is applied to represent the differential bremsstrahlung radiation cross section as a function of the scaled impact parameter and projectile energy. The results show that there exists a nonradiation position in the bremsstrahlung radiation due to the balance between the repulsive and attraction interactions. The image charge effects on the bremsstrahlung radiation is dominant for small impact parameters. For large impact parameters, the image charge effect on the bremsstrahlung cross section for the hard photon radiation is found to be more significant than that for the soft photon radiation.