Dust Charging and Transport on Surfaces

In this paper, we review laboratory studies of dust transport on surfaces in plasmas, performed for a number of different mechanisms: 1) Dust particles were levitated in plasma sheaths by electrostatic forces balancing the gravitational force. 2) Dust was observed to spread over and lift off a surface that repels electrons in a plasma. 3) Dust was transported on surfaces having different secondary electron yields in plasma with an electron beam as a consequence of differential charging. 4) We also report a mechanism of dust transport by electric fields occurring at electron beam impact/shadow boundaries. These processes are candidates to explain the formation of dust ponds that were recently observed in craters on the asteroid Eros by the NEAR Shoemaker spacecraft.