Coagulation of charged particles in a dusty plasma

An investigation is made of characteristic features in the behavior of smal l particles in a dusty plasma attributable partly to the suppression of coa gulation as a result of monopolar charging for particle sizes smaller than the Debye shielding length and partly to the reduction in the effect of cha rging for larger particles. Similarity relations linking the plasma composi tion and particle charge with the parameters of the dust component are used to determine the range of parameters for which the linear approximation of the particle charge as a function of their sizes holds. A modified classic al theory of coagulation in the diffusion approximation is used to study so me anomalies in the behavior of the particle size distribution. It is estab lished that unlike an ordinary aerosol, in a dusty plasma the dispersion of the distribution and the average particle size may decrease with time. It is shown for the first time that a long-lived "quasi-liquid" state of a dus ty plasma may be established as a result of the anomalous behavior of the s ize distribution function of coagulating charged particles. (C) 2000 MAIK " Nauka/Interperiodica".