Perspectives of collective processes in dusty plasmas: A keynote address

Abstract

Dusty plasmas are fully or partially ionized low-temperature gases composed of electrons, ions, and micron-sized extremely massive charged dust grains. The dusty plasma physics is a rapidly growing area of science. There has been a great deal of interest in investigating numerous collective processes in dusty plasmas following the discovery of the dust acoustic wave and the observation of dusty plasma crystals. This chapter reviews the status of waves, instabilities, and coherent nonlinear structures in weakly and strongly coupled dusty plasmas. The chapter describes the physics of dusty plasma waves and associated nonlinear structures such as solitons, shocks, and vortices in dusty plasmas. The chapter also discusses the wake-potential and the associated attractive force that is responsible for the Coulomb crystallization of charged dust grains. Finally, this chapter points out observations of many collective processes in low-temperature laboratory i dusty plasmas.