Charging and heat collection by a positively charged dust grain in a plasma

Phys Rev Lett. 2014 Jul 18;113(3):035002. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.113.035002. Epub 2014 Jul 15.

Abstract

Dust particulates immersed in a quasineutral plasma can emit electrons in several important applications. Once electron emission becomes strong enough, the dust enters the positively charged regime where the conventional orbital-motion-limited (OML) theory can break down due to potential-well effects on trapped electrons. A minimal modification of the trapped-passing boundary approximation in the so-called OML(+) approach is shown to accurately predict the dust charge and heat collection flux for a wide range of dust size and temperature.