Investigation of a streaming instability due to dust-charge fluctuations

Abstract

A numerical simulation model is presented to study an important effect of dust charging on waves and instabilities in unmagnetized dusty plasmas. In this study, the background plasma is treated as a two-component fluid whose density self-consistently varies due to dust charging. The dust is treated with a particle-in-cell model in which the dust charge varies with time according to the standard dust-charging model. An ion acoustic streaming instability due to dust charging when the ion fluid drifts with respect to stationary charged dust grains and electrons is investigated. The numerical simulation results show good agreement with theoretical predictions and provide further insight into dust-charging effects on wave modes and instabilities in dusty plasmas.