Nonlinear evolution of the ion acoustic instability in artificially created dusty space plasmas

Abstract

[1] A two-dimensional model is used to investigate the ion acoustic instability driven by streaming charged dust to understand the generation and the nonlinear evolution of electrostatic waves during active space experiments in which artificial aerosol clouds are created in the ionosphere. In the model, the plasma background ions and charged dust are treated as discrete particles while electrons are dealt with as a Boltzmann fluid. A Monte Carlo Collision (MCC) model is adopted to deal with the ion and neutral collisions. The simulation results show that the ion acoustic waves initially grow and propagate obliquely to the streaming direction with the maximum growth. Nonlinear evolution shows saturation by acceleration of dust particles, background ion heating, and development of an ion bulk drift in the dust streaming direction. Spiky bipolar electric field structures are also observed that are characteristic of ion acoustic-type waves observed during other space experiments. Important parameters of the dust cloud that impact the evolution of the waves are discussed.