Low-frequency drift instabilities in a strongly magnetized collisional dusty plasma

Abstract

We investigate drift instabilities in the dust acoustic or dust lower-hybrid frequency regimes in a nonuniform, collisional, strongly magnetized dusty plasma. It is assumed that the magnetic field strength is such that the ions and electrons are magnetized, while the negatively charged dust grains are collisional and nonmagnetized. We consider a situation in which the negatively charged dust is spatially localized, creating an electron depletion or electron ‘hole’, with an electron density gradient in the opposite direction to a dust density gradient at the boundaries. In this case, low-frequency drift instabilities can be driven by the electron E0 × B0 and diamagnetic drifts, where E0 and B0 are the dc electric and magnetic fields, respectively. Using parameters that may be representative of possible laboratory conditions, it is found that the critical drift for such drift instabilities can be lower than that for the excitation of a low-frequency Hall current instability, which is driven primarily by the ion Hall current.