Abstract
The theoretical description of complex (dusty) plasmas requires multiscale concepts that adequately incorporate the correlated interplay of streaming electrons and ions, neutrals and dust grains. Knowing the effective dust–dust interaction, the multiscale problem can be effectively reduced to a one-component plasma model of the dust subsystem. The goal of this paper is a systematic evaluation of the electrostatic potential distribution around a dust grain in the presence of a streaming plasma environment by means of two complementary approaches: (i) a high-precision computation of the dynamically screened Coulomb potential from the dynamic dielectric function and (ii) full 3D particle-in-cell simulations, which self-consistently include dynamical grain charging and nonlinear effects. The range of applicability of these two approaches is addressed.
Highlights
The theoretical description of complex plasmas requires multiscale concepts that adequately incorporate the correlated interplay of streaming electrons and ions, neutrals and dust grains
Due to the large mass of the grains as well as the large distances between the grains, the study of the dynamics of several dust grains requires simulation times that are much longer than the dust charging
The finite size of the grain leads to enhanced potential variations in the wake as compared to the previous linear response (LR) results, because the selfconsistent grain charge is of the order of Qd ≈ −105e0
Summary
The theoretical description of complex (dusty) plasmas requires multiscale concepts that adequately incorporate the correlated interplay of streaming electrons and ions, neutrals and dust grains. Short-time, small-scale PIC simulations of dust charging or, alternatively, less demanding LR calculations of the dynamical plasma shielding have to be coupled with large-scale OCP simulations which incorporate the interaction between the grains on a more abstract level [46,47,48]. Such a coupled multi-scale numerical approach may ensure the description of the correlated system dynamics with proper charges on the grains as well as an accurate potential distribution in the vicinity of grains. 2. a critical assessment of these LR results in particular with regard to nonlinear effects and dynamical grain charging processes by means of self-consistent 3D PIC simulations
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