Particle Simulation of Dusty Plasmas

Abstract

The NRL Dynamically Shielded Dust (DSD) particle simulation code has been developed to model dusty plasmas. The code uses the techniques of molecular dynamics, particle-in-cell plasma simulations, and the test particle formulation of plasma kinetic theory. In addition, the interaction potential between dust particles is broken into long and short range parts using the P³M technique of Hockney and Eastwood. The resulting simulation code avoids the necessity of integrating on plasma time scales, but still is able to include plasma effects.