490 Chapter 17. Dusty plasmasFigure 17.3: Dusty plasma parameter space showing contours of constantψd, α,and
Zd/ 4 πni 0 λ^3 Difor an argon plasma withTe/Ti= 100.The experimental line corresponds
to the density range of the Chu and I experiment (Chu and I 1994);these plots are from
Bellan (2004).
17.4 Dusty plasma parameter space
A dusty plasma is characterized by its normalized dust radius ̄rdand normalized dust in-
terparticle spacinga ̄. These quantities determineP and, givenP,the normalized dust
surface potentialψdis obtained by solving Eq.(17.27). KnowingPandψdgivesαusing
Eq.(17.21). The consequence of this logical chain of argument is thatαcan be considered
to be a function of ̄rdand ̄a.
A dusty plasma parameter space can thus be constructed where ̄ais the horizontal com-