Dust Acoustic Solitons in the Plasma of the Dusty Exosphere of the Moon

Abstract

We demonstrate the possibility of the existence and propagation of dust acoustic solitons in the dusty plasma of the lunar exosphere, which contains, in addition to electrons and ions of the solar wind and photoelectrons from its surface, charged dust particles, as well as photoelectrons emitting from the surfaces of these particles. Soliton solutions are found and the ranges of possible velocities and amplitudes of such solitons are determined depending on the height above the lunar surface for different subsolar angles.

Dust Acoustic Solitons in Saturn’s Dust-Filled Magnetosphere

“…To describe dust acoustic solitons (see, e.g., [13][14][15]), the following set of equations can be used, which includes the continuity equation, the (Euler) motion equation for the dust grains, and Poisson's equation for the self-consistent electrostatic potential in the dusty plasma of Saturn's magnetosphere: (1) where the space variable x corresponds to the propagation direction of the wave perturbation, n d is the concentration of dust grains, is their velocity, m d and q d = Z d e is the mass and charge of dust grains, is the electron charge, n e,c(h) is the concentration of hot (cold) electrons, and n i is the concentration of ions.…”