Secondary electron emissions and dust charging currents in the nonequilibrium dusty plasma with power-law distributions

Abstract

We study the secondary electron emissions induced by the impact of electrons on dust grains and the resulting dust charging processes in the nonequilibrium dusty plasma with power-law distributions. We derive new expressions of the secondary emitted electron flux and the dust charging currents that are generalized by the power-law q-distributions, where the nonlinear core functions are numerically studied for the nonextensive parameter q. Our numerical analyses show that the power-law q-distribution of the primary electrons has a significant effect on both the secondary emitted electron flux and the dust charging currents, and this effect depends strongly on the ratio of the electrostatic potential energy of the primary electrons at the dust grain's surface to the thermodynamic energy, implying that a competition in the dusty plasma between these two energies plays a crucial role in this novel effect. © 2012 American Institute of Physics.