Long-range interaction between dust grains in plasma

TL;DR

This paper explores the long-range electrostatic interactions between dust grains in plasma, introducing a cell model and analogy with molecular liquids to describe attractive forces.

Contribution

It presents a novel cell model framework and fluctuation theory approach to analyze dust grain interactions, highlighting the multipole nature of attraction.

Findings

Attractive intergrain potential is described by multipole interactions.

Analogy established between dusty plasma and molecular liquids.

Main contribution identified as fluctuation-induced electrostatic attraction.

Abstract

The nature of long-range interactions between dust grains in plasma is discussed. The dust grain interaction potential within a cell model of dusty plasma is introduced. The attractive part of intergrain potential is described by multipole interaction between two electro-neutral cells. This allowed us to draw an analogy with molecular liquids where the attraction between molecules is determined by dispersion forces. The main ideas of the fluctuation theory for electrostatic field in a cell model are formulated, and the dominating contribution to the attractive part of intergrain potential is obtained.