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Updated: Apr 29, 2026

Experimental Methods of Dust Charging and Mobilization on Surfaces with Exposure to Ultraviolet Radiation or Plasmas
Published on: April 3, 2018
Dust-acoustic shocks in strongly coupled dusty plasmas
S E Cousens1, V V Yaroshenko2, S Sultana3
1Centre for Plasma Physics, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Queen's University Belfast, BT7 1NN Northern Ireland, United Kingdom.
Abstract:
Electrostatic dust-acoustic shock waves are investigated in a viscous, complex plasma consisting of dust particles, electrons, and ions. The system is modelled using the generalized hydrodynamic equations, with strong coupling between the dust particles being accounted for by employing the effective electrostatic temperature approach. Using a reductive perturbation method, it is demonstrated that this model predicts the existence of weakly nonlinear dust-acoustic shock waves, arising as solutions to Burgers's equation, in which the nonlinear forces are balanced by dissipative forces, in this case, associated with viscosity. The evolution and stability of dust-acoustic shocks is investigated via a series of numerical simulations, which confirms our analytical predictions on the shock characteristics.
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