Electrostatic collisional sheath of dusty plasmas

Abstract

An electrostatic collisional sheath of a dusty plasma is investigated. The plasma is assumed to be highly neutralized so that most collisions arise from the interaction between ions and neutral gas. Dust particles are considered as spherical grains whose charges can be determined by the collisional probe theory We assume that the dust particles are motionless with uniform density. It is shown that the species of neutral gas as well as the ion to electron density ratio can have a strong influence on the sheath potential profile and dust charges.