Thermal instability of an expanding dusty plasma with equilibrium cooling

TL;DR

This paper analyzes how equilibrium cooling and dust particles influence thermal instabilities in expanding plasmas, with implications for structures in planetary nebulae, highlighting transient small-scale formations and dust-charge effects.

Contribution

It investigates the combined effects of expansion, cooling, and dust on thermal instabilities in dusty plasmas, providing new insights into their transient nature in astrophysical environments.

Findings

Expansion and cooling destabilize radiation condensation modes.

Dust particles enhance the instability effects.

Dust-charge fluctuations suppress thermal instabilities.

Abstract

We present an analysis of radiation induced instabilities in an expanding plasma with considerable presence of dust particles and equilibrium cooling. We have shown that the equilibrium expansion and cooling destabilize the radiation condensation modes and the presence of dust particles enhances this effect. We have examined our results in the context of ionized, dusty-plasma environments such as those found in planetary nebulae (PNe). We show that due to the non-static equilibrium and finite equilibrium cooling, small-scale localized structures formed out of thermal instability, become transient, which agrees with the observational results. The dust-charge fluctuation is found to heavily suppress these instabilities, though in view of non-availability of convincing experimental data, a definitive conclusion could not be made.