Chargeons and phonons in a dusty plasma

The quantization procedure for low-frequency modes in a plasma has been gen eralized to include dust-Coulomb waves (DCWs) which are driven by the grain charge oscillations in a dusty plasma. We thus introduce the concept of "c hargeon", the elementary excitation of the ultra low-frequency electrostati c fields in a dusty plasma, which are mainly supported by the grain charge oscillations. Their characteristic features are similar to the usual phonon s, but they correspond to very different physical properties of the medium.