Streaming instability in the grain charge fluctuations

Highly charged massive dust grains present in a dusty plasma may exhibit charge fluctuations in response to certain types of oscillations incorporated in the plasma. In this situation the grain charge becomes a time-dependent and self-consistent dynamic variable. The consequent modifications in the collective properties of a dusty plasma in response to longitudinal space-charge waves are investigated. It is shown this new effect gives rise to purely damped modes, in addition to causing a collisionless damping of the normal modes. copyright 1996 American Institute of Physics