Impacts of fast meteoroids and a plasma–dust cloud over the lunar surface

The possibility of the formation of a plasma–dust cloud in the exosphere of the Moon owing to impacts of meteoroids on the lunar surface is discussed. Attention is focused on dust particles at large altitudes of ~10–100 km at which measurements were performed within the NASA LADEE mission. It has been shown that a melted material ejected from the lunar surface owing to the impacts of meteoroids plays an important role in the formation of the plasma–dust cloud. Drops of the melted material acquire velocities in the range between the first and second cosmic velocities for the Moon and can undergo finite motion around it. Rising over the lunar surface, liquid drops are solidified and acquire electric charges, in particular, owing to their interaction with electrons and ions of the solar wind, as well as with solar radiation. It has been shown that the number density of dust particles in the plasma–dust cloud present in the exosphere of the Moon is ?10^?8 cm^?3, which is in agreement with the LADEE measurements.     

Dusty plasma system in the surface layer of the illuminated part of the moon

The dusty plasma system in the surface layer of the illuminated part of the Moon has been considered. The maximum height of the dust rise has been determined. It has been shown that a dead zone, where dust particles cannot rise over the surface of the Moon, is absent near a lunar latitude of 80°. The size and height distributions of dust have been determined.     

Effect of the solar wind on the formation of a photoinduced dusty plasma layer near the surface of the Moon

A dusty plasma layer formed near the illuminated part of the surface of the Moon under the action of ultraviolet radiation, as well as fast and slow solar wind, has been numerically simulated. The numerical calculations including the photoemission properties of lunar regolith samples delivered to the Earth have been compared to estimates within known theoretical models. It has been shown that the flux of solar wind particles plays an important role in the formation of the surface photoelectron layer. The conditions of the charging and stable levitation of dust particles in the surface plasma layer of the Moon have been analyzed.     

Ultrahigh charging of dust particles in a nonequilibrium plasma

Charging of dust particles in a plasma with the two-temperature energy distribution of electrons has been studied. It has been shown that the dust-particle potential divided by the electron temperature decreases with increasing electron temperature in the plasma with cold ions. Owing to this behavior, the potential of the dustparticle surface increases with the electron temperature more slowly than the linear function and is lower than the electron temperature (divided by the elementary charge) for T _e > 5.5 eV in hydrogen and for T _e > 240 eV in argon. The fraction of fast electrons at which these electrons begin to contribute to the charge of dust particles has been determined. It has been shown that the charge of micron particles can reach 10⁶ elementary charges. The effect of the cold and thermal field emission on the charge of dust particles has been analyzed. The possibility of obtaining ultrahigh charges (to 10⁷ elementary charges on dust particles with a radius of 50–100 μm irradiated by a 25-keV 1-mA electron beam has been demonstrated.     

Formation of Dusty Plasma Clouds at Meteoroid Impact on the Surface of the Moon

The nature of two dusty plasma clouds appearing because of the impact of a meteoroid on the surface of the Moon has been discussed. It has been shown that one of the clouds is formed by particles (or fragments) of regolith ejected into free space by a shock wave induced by the meteoroid impact on the surface of the Moon and the second cloud is formed by solidified melt droplets. The main characteristics of these clouds, including the cloud expansion rates, the characteristic sizes of particles in both clouds, and the concentrations and charges of particles, have been calculated. The calculated cloud expansion rates are in qualitative agreement with the observational data.     

Modification of the texture of a polymer material surface in dust plasma

We have analyzed the modification of the texture of polymer particle surface in a dust plasma. Monodisperse spherical melamine formaldehyde particles were injected into the glow discharge plasma in neon. At a certain discharge current and gas pressure in the discharge tube, the particles were suspended in dust-plasma traps and experienced the action of the plasma of 5–25 min. Then, the particles were extracted and the collected material was studied using the scanning electron microscope. Among the results, a change in the diameter and roughness of the surface depending on the residence time of particles in the dust plasma was established. It was found that the absolute deviation of all points of the surface profile averaged over the evaluation length were in the nanometer range. The time of complete degradation of particles in the experimental conditions has been established.

     

Large-Scale Transport of Charged Macroparticles Induced by Dust–Acoustic Solitons

We have studied experimentally the oscillatory process in the dusty plasma in the glow discharge stratum. It is shown that the oscillations are induced by the dust–acoustic instability, as a result of which dust–acoustic solitons are excited. The motion of dust particles in the electric field of solitons has been analyzed. It has been established that a soliton leads to a large-scale unidirectional transport of charged particles in the direction of its motion. The experimental results have been interpreted theoretically using the MHD model of the plasma.     

Bipolar charging of dust particles under ultraviolet radiation

The photoemission charging of dust particles under ultraviolet radiation from a xenon lamp has been investigated. The velocities of yttrium dust particles with a work function of 3.3 eV and their charges have been determined experimentally; the latter are about 400–500 and about 100 elementary charges per micron of radius for the positively and negatively charged fractions, respectively. The dust particle charging and the dust cloud evolution in a photoemission cell after exposure to an ultraviolet radiation source under the applied voltage have been simulated numerically. The photoemission charging of dust particles has been calculated on the basis of nonlocal and local charging models. Only unipolar particle charging is shown to take place in a system of polydisperse dust particles with the same photoemission efficiency. It has been established that bipolar charging is possible in the case of monodisperse particles with different quantum efficiencies. Polydispersity in this case facilitates the appearance of oppositely charged particles in a photoemission plasma.     

Dust acoustic waves in a nonequilibrium dusty plasma

With the use of the method of moments applicable for any values of the parameter of the nonideality of a dusty plasma and the hydrodynamic approach applicable only for small nonideality parameters, the theory of waves and oscillations of a complex plasma has been generalized to the case of a two-exponential interaction potential. It has been shown that the hydrodynamic approach and method of moments give the same dispersion relation for small nonideality parameters. It has been demonstrated that the velocity of dust acoustic waves in the long- and short-wavelength regions is determined by the small and large screening constants, respectively. It has been shown that the velocity of dust acoustic waves in nonequilibrium plasma is much higher than that obtained in the Debye screening theory for equilibrium plasma. In the hydrodynamic approach, the importance of the inclusion of the self-consistent mutual effect of the dust, electron, and ion components, and sinks of electrons and ions on dust particles, which lead to a noticeable change in the parameters of the interaction potential of dust particles, has been demonstrated.     

Probabilistic model of Kordylewski clouds

The problem of determining the phase-space distribution function for the system of the noninteracting dust particles for the mathematical model of cosmic dust Kordylewski clouds—clusters of the non-interacting dust particles in the vicinity of the triangular libration points of the Earth–Moon–Particle system taking into account perturbations from the Sun was considered.     

Mode transitions on the surface dust ion-acoustic wave in a semibounded dusty plasma

The effects of elongated rotating dust grains on the mode transitions of the dispersion relation of the surface dust ion-acoustic waves are investigated in a semi-bounded dusty plasma. The dispersion relation of the surface dust ion-acoustic wave is obtained by the plasma dielectric function with the specular reflection boundary condition. The result shows the existence of the dust ion-acoustic resonance modes in small and large wave number regions. It is also shown that the surface wave would be propagated in intermediate wave number domains. It is interesting to note that the wave propagation domain has been diminished with an increase of the rotation frequency.     

Laser-Induced Phase Transition in a Monolayer of Polymer Particles Levitating in a Low-Pressure Gas-Discharge Plasma

We report on the results of analysis of the mean kinetic energy and the pair correlation function of polymer particles in a plasma–dust structure under the action of laser radiation. We have observed experimentally the crystal–liquid phase transition in the monolayer of particles levitating in the near-electrode layer of a capacitive high-frequency discharge. The coupling parameter of the dust system has been estimated. The results of analysis of the modification of the polymer dust particle surface after holding in the plasma are considered. We propose an explanation of the phase transition taking into account the role of the photophoretic force in the motion of macroparticles. The effect of the photophoretic force is associated with the modification of the dust particle surface in the plasma, as a result of which the particles can effectively absorb laser radiation.     

On the resonant production of axions in a magnetar magnetosphere

The effect of a magnetized plasma on the resonant photoproduction of axions on the electromagnetic multipole components of the medium, i → f + a, has been considered. It has been shown that the axion emissivity in the resonance region, owing to various reactions involving particles of the medium, is certainly expressed in terms of the emissivity of the photon → axion transition. The number of axions produced by the equilibrium cosmic microwave background radiation in the magnetar magnetosphere has been determined. It has been shown that the resonant mechanism under consideration is inefficient for the production of cold dark mass.     

Theory of self-organized dust sheaths in edge plasmas

A concept of self-organisation is used to derive the structure of dust sheath close to the wall taking into account self-consistently dust charges and dust distribution together with electron, ion distributions and ion drift. It is shown that instead of Bohm criterion the dust sheath is determined by other criteria allowing Mach number to be in restricted value ranges. The total structure of the dust sheath in dimensionless variables is determined by the Mach number only. Dust sheaths can contain definite number of dust particles per unit area which are determined by the value of the Mach number. The dust sheaths change drastically the electrostatic potential distributions and are usually much thicker than the usual plasma sheaths. A theoretical model together with numerical computations gives all dust sheath parameter distributions and the global characteristics such as the total drop of the potential, the thickness of the sheath, the number of dust particles in the sheath and the criterion of dust levitation. The recent observations on “Textor 94” indicating the long time dust survival in edge region of the present tokamaks, the dust levitation and agglomeration in the volume of edge tokamak plasma are discussed.     

Initiation of dusty structures in chain reactions under the action of gyrotron radiation on a mixture of metal and dielectric powders with an open boundary

A dusty plasma formed in chain exothermal reactions initiated by radiation of a high-power gyrotron in mixtures of metal and dielectric powders has been described. An oscillatory character of such chain reactions, as well as the appearance of dust particles at the first (explosive) stage, has been detected. The tracks, velocities, and sizes of dust particles have been measured. It has been revealed that ensembles of dust particles appear in a reactor after switching-off of the gyrotron against the background of development of chemical reactions. The time of existence of these ensembles is three or four orders of magnitude larger than the duration of a microwave radiation pulse. The quasistationary state of the low-temperature plasma with charged macroparticles appears because of both the chemical heating of the mixture in the reactor and thermophoresis. It has been shown that dust particles are necessary as crystallization nuclei for the creation (or deposition) of complex composites of nano- and micromaterials produced in secondary plasma chemical synthesis.     

Interactions of charged dust particles in clouds of charges

Two charged dust particles inside a cloud of charges are considered as Debye atoms forming a Debye molecule. Cassini coordinates are used for the numerical solution of the Poisson-Boltzmann equation for the charged cloud. The electric force acting on a dust particle by the other dust particle was determined by integrating the electrostatic pressure on the surface of the dust particle. It is shown that attractive forces appear when the following two conditions are satisfied. First, the average distance between dust particles should be approximately equal to two Debye radii. Second, attraction takes place when similar charges are concentrated predominantly on the dust particles. If the particles carry a small fraction of total charge of the same polarity, repulsion between the particles takes place at all distances. We apply our results to the experiments with thermoemission plasma and to the experiments with nuclear-pumped plasma.     

尘埃等离子体鞘层的玻姆判据

采用流体方程和自洽电荷变化模型研究了尘埃等离子体鞘层的玻姆判据. 讨论了离子临界马赫数和尘埃粒子临界马赫数随尘埃密度变化的关系, 以及尘埃表面势随尘埃密度变化的趋势. 由于鞘边尘埃粒子的存在, 离子必需以大于声速的速度进入鞘层; 随尘埃密度的持续增加, 离子的临界马赫数增加到一个最大值后开始逐渐减小. 数值计算得到的结果满足Sagdeev势的定性分析. 关键词： 等离子体 鞘层 玻姆判据     

Metastable states of dust plasma

The free energy of three-component dust plasma has been calculated analytically based on the spherical model of an elementary electroneutral volume. It has been shown that metastable states of dust particles, ions, and simultaneously all plasma particles can exist for finite interparticle distances. These states can be attained due to spatial correlation of electrons, while some states can be attained due to the correlation of ions. A large charge of dust particles, high electron temperature, and a small fraction of the charge of the electrons compared to the total absolute charge of the plasma particles are important conditions for the existence of metastable states. A possible connection between the existence of metastable states of particles in the plasma and their agglomeration has been analyzed.     

Coexistence of positive and negative solitary potential structures in dusty plasma

A dusty plasma system consisting of electrons, ions, and negative as well as positive dust particles has been considered. The basic properties of arbitrary amplitude solitary potential structures that may exist in such a multi-component dusty plasma have been theoretically investigated by the pseudo-potential approach. It has been found that the presence of additional positive dust component does not only significantly modify the basic properties of solitary potential structures, but also causes the coexistence of positive and negative solitary potential structures, which is a completely new feature shown in a dusty plasma with dust of opposite polarity.