Driven dust-charge fluctuation and chaotic ion dynamics in the plasma sheath and pre-sheath regions

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that externally driven dust-charge fluctuations, induced by UV radiation, can lead to chaotic ion dynamics in the plasma sheath and pre-sheath regions, revealing complex behavior in dusty plasmas.

Contribution

It introduces a hybrid PIC-MCC simulation showing how external UV-driven dust-charge fluctuations induce chaos in ion motion within plasma sheaths.

Findings

Driven dust-charge fluctuations can induce chaos in ion dynamics.

External UV radiation effectively drives dust-charge fluctuations.

Chaotic behavior observed in sheath and pre-sheath ion regions.

Abstract

Possible existence of chaotic oscillations in ion dynamics in the sheath and pre-sheath regions of a dusty plasma, induced by externally driven dust-charge fluctuation, is presented in this work. In a complex plasma, dust charge fluctuation occurs continuously with time due to the variation of electron and ions current flowing into the dust particles. In most of the works related to dust-charge fluctuation, theoretically it is assumed that the average dust-charge fluctuation follows the the plasma perturbation, while in reality, the dust-charge fluctuation is a semi-random phenomena, fluctuating about some average value. The very cause of dust-charge fluctuation in a dusty plasma also points to the fact that these fluctuations can be driven externally by changing electron and ion currents to the dust particles. With the help of a \emph{hybrid}-Particle in Cell-Monte Carlo (\emph{h}-PIC-MCC) code in this work, we use the plasma sheath as a candidate for driving the dust-charge fluctuation by periodically exposing the sheath-side wall to UV radiation, causing photoemission of electrons, which in turn drive the dust-charge fluctuation. We show that this \emph{driven} dust-charge fluctuation can induce a chaotic response in the ion dynamics in the sheath and the pre-sheath regions.