Dust Ion-Acoustic Shocks in a Q Machine Device

Dust ion‐acoustic shocks in a Q machine device are considered. For their description the so‐called hydrodynamic ionization source model is used. The model is appropriate for the description of the laboratory experiments in a Q machine device and contains the most important basic mechanisms responsible for the formation of the dust ion‐acoustic shocks. A comparative analysis of various dissipative processes occurring on ion‐acoustic time scales during the excitation and propagation of nonlinear dust ion‐acoustic perturbations in a complex (dusty) plasma is performed in terms of a purely kinetic approach and a hydrodynamic approach. It is found that the most important dissipative processes are the charging of dust grains, the absorption of ions by grains, the transfer of the ion momentum to the grains, and Landau damping. (© 2005 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)