Plasma Diagnostic Methods: Test Charge Response in Lorentzian Dusty Plasmas

Abstract

Different plasma diagnostic methods are briefly discussed, and the framework of a test charge technique is effectively used as diagnostic tool for investigating interaction potentials in Lorentzian plasma, whose constituents are the superthermal electrons and ions with negatively charged dust grains. Applying the space-time Fourier transformations to the linearized coupled Vlasov-Poisson equations, a test charge potential is derived with a modified response function due to energetic ions and electrons. For a test charge moving much slower than the dust-thermal speed, there appears a short-range Debye-Hückel (DH) potential decaying exponentially with distance and a long-range far-field (FF) potential as the inverse cube of the distance from test charge. The FF potentials exhibit more localized shielding curves for low-Kappas, and smaller effective shielding length is observed in dusty plasma compared to electron-ion plasma. However, a wakefield (WF) potential is formed behind the test charge when it resonates with dust-acoustic oscillations, whereas a fast moving test charge leads to the Coulomb potential having no shielding around. It is revealed that superthermality and plasma parameters significantly alter the DH, FF, and WF potentials in space plasmas of Saturn’s E-ring, where power-law distributions can be used for energetic electrons and ions in contrast to Maxwellian dust grains.