Specificities of the Nonlocal EDF Formation in a Dusty Plasma With the Different Spatial Distribution of the Microparticle Density

Abstract

The formation of a nonlocal electron distribution function (EDF) in an argon dusty plasma of a dc glow discharge has been studied in a wide range of microparticle densities and their different spatial distributions inside a dusty cloud have also been explored. It is shown that the spatial profile of charges and the ambipolar potential can vary greatly, both with a change in the absolute values of the density of dust particles and the type of their spatial distribution. In turn, changes in the profiles of the ambipolar potential lead to strong differences in the nonlocal EDF at different points of the tube radius. This is most clearly seen at high densities of dust particles when nonmonotonic profiles of the potential distribution and reversal of the sign of the ambipolar field are formed. In this extreme case, great changes in the nonlocal EDF are observed not only at the discharge periphery but also inside the dust cloud.