Adiabatic effects on nonlinear dust-acoustic solitary and shock waves in a strongly coupled dusty plasma

Abstract

A theoretical investigation has been performed on a strongly coupled dusty plasma containing strongly correlated negatively charged dust grains and weakly correlated adiabatic electrons and ions. The adiabatic effects on the dust-acoustic (DA) solitary and shock waves propagating in such a strongly coupled dusty plasma are taken into account. The DA solitary and shock waves are found to exist with negative potential only. It has been shown that the strong correlation among the charged dust grains is a source of dissipation and is responsible for the formation of the DA shock waves. It has also been found that the effects of adiabaticity significantly modify the basic features (e.g., amplitude, width, speed, etc.) of the DA solitary and shock waves. It has been suggested that a laboratory experiment be performed to test the theory presented in this work.