Numerical simulations of dust charging and wakefield effects

Abstract

Charging of dust grains and related phenomena are fundamental problems in the physics of complex plasmas. The relative motion of grains and plasma breaks the symmetry in dust charging and gives rise to the wake in plasma density and potential, which can significantly influence the dynamics of other grains. This paper gives an overview of dust charging in two- and multi-component plasma flows and related wake effects, and presents recent results from self-consistent particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations. The role of wakefields is considered in the context of charging of downstream grains.