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Updated: Dec 8, 2025

Non-equilibrium Microwave Plasma for Efficient High Temperature Chemistry
Published on: August 1, 2017
Nonlinear dispersion relation for dust-acoustic waves in complex plasmas
1Institut für Materialphysik im Weltraum, Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR), 82234 Wessling, Germany.
Abstract:
Nonlinear dispersion relation for the finite-amplitude dust acoustic modes is obtained taking into account resonant particle trapping in the wave. The kinetic model predicts a frequency shift scaling ∝sqrt[ϕ] relative to the linear dispersion relation with ϕ being the wave amplitude of the electrostatic potential. The species contributions to the nonlinear frequency shift have opposite sign: positive for trapped electrons and ions and negative for particles. It is shown that the relative importance of these contributions depends on the electron-to-ion or particle temperature ratio, particle charge, and Havnes parameter. In typical complex plasma experiments, the kinetic frequency shift is dominated by the positive ion contribution. As a result, the nonlinear modification of the dispersion relation affects the wave dispersion properties and may provide the acoustic-like behavior to the wave number domain kλ_{Di}∼1.
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