The aim of the present study is to determine the impact the finite size of dust particles has on the static and dynamic characteristics of the dust component of a plasma.Taking into account both the finite dimensions of dust grains and the plasma screening, a model expression is chosen for the interdust interaction potential. The static structure factor of dust particles is evaluated by iteratively solving the reference hypernetted-chain approximation, which inherently contains the hard sphere model handled within the Percus-Yevick closure. The self-consistent method of moments is then engaged to relate the static and dynamic structure factors by assuming that the second derivative of the dynamic structure factor with respect to the frequency vanishes at the origin. Thus, an analytical expression for the dynamic structure factor is validated over quite a broad domain of dusty plasma non-ideality and grains packing fraction. The calculated spectrum of dust-acoustic waves reveals the appearance of the roton minimum, which becomes less pronounced when the packing fraction of dust particles rises. It is also predicted that the wavenumber position of the roton minimum is de facto independent of the size of dust particles. New analytical expressions for the dust-acoustic wave spectrum and decrement of damping are proposed and thoroughly checked.
K E Y W O R D Sdust-acoustic waves, dusty plasmas, dynamic structure factor, method of moments