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Dust populations in space plasmas are often described by a size distribution function, generally a power law distribution. In view of that, we include this feature in the kinetic description of a homogeneous magnetized dusty plasma with electrically charged immobile dust grains, in order to study its effects in the propagation and damping of Alfvén waves. The dispersion relation is numerically solved using parameters typically found in the dust-driven stellar winds of carbon-rich stars and in Earth's auroral acceleration region, two space systems with unalike plasma parameters and in which Alfvén waves are known to play important roles in the plasma acceleration and heating processes. We show that the characteristics of the normal modes, namely the ion cyclotron and whistler modes, will change when one considers a power law distribution of dust sizes in the theory, as compared to a mono-sized dust population; and that these differences will depend on the exponent p of the power law, which alters the plasma charge imbalance between electrons and ions. We also notice that power-law distribution functions will modify the waves' damping rate values. In particular, we show that in a stellar wind environment the ion cyclotron mode at very small wavenumber decreases with the reduction of p , while for higher wavenumber the damping of this mode increases with the reduction of p. For the Earth's magnetosphere, the results obtained show that the wave damping increases with the decrease of p for all wavenumbers, for the parameters considered in the analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Estimation of the properties of the sublimation products leaving the cometary nucleus is one of the significant questions in the study of the dusty-gas flow following the Rosetta mission. It is widely assumed that the temperature of the water molecules emitted is the temperature of ice directly exposed to the surface. However, it is the simplest non-verified idealization if the refractory porous material lays on the surface and controls the energy driving the ice sublimation. This highly non-isothermal surface layer should change the vapour temperature as the molecules pass through it from the icy region to the vacuum. A key sustaining observation here comes from the MIRO experiment on Rosetta which measured the velocity of water vapour. The observed gas velocities are visibly higher than can be explained by emission at typical ice surface temperature. To investigate the issue, we simulate a gas flow through a non-isothermal porous dust layer and analyse the temperature of molecules emitted. Monodisperse and bimodal layers, as well as layers made of porous aggregates, are considered. Modelling is carried out for various porosity values, different particle sizes, and dust layer thicknesses. The simulation results are embedded in two-layer thermal models including the effective thermal conductivity, volumetric light absorption, and the resistance of the dust layer to the gas flow. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a new approach to determining the dimensions of particles that can be lifted to a coma by the sublimation flux of water ice. Due to the diverse colour of the cometary surfaces, in the presented calculations we take into account the influence of the reflectance coefficient (hemispherical albedo) on the size of particles lifted from the surface of the nucleus. A Cary 5000 spectrometer was used to measure hemispherical albedo. Spectroscopic measurements used dust particles that consisted of pure silicate or were a mixture of pure silicate and organic compounds such as charcoal, soot, and ash. In addition, these admixtures acted as a means of darkening the tested sample. Depending on the colour of the sample and the wavelength, the measured value of hemispherical albedo oscillated in the range from 4.93 per cent to 48.65 per cent. A thermodynamic model of cometary matter emission was developed based on the results of hemispherical albedo measurements. The performed numerical simulations show that the temperature decreases with the increase of the hemispherical albedo, which translates into the sublimation flux and the dynamics of the dust-ice particles present on the surface of the cometary nucleus. Taking into account the extreme values of the hemispherical albedo, the differences in the size of particles carried away from the surface of the nucleus are in the order of centimeters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intermediate-luminosity red transients (ILRTs) are a class of observed transient posited to arise from the production of an electron-capture supernova from a super-asymptotic giant branch star within a dusty cocoon. In this paper, we present a systematic analysis of narrow Na  i D absorption as a means of probing the circumstellar environment of these events. We find a wide diversity of evolution in ILRTs in terms of line strength, time-scale, and shape. We present a simple toy model designed to predict this evolution as arising from ejecta from a central supernova passing through a circumstellar environment wherein Na  ii is recombining to Na  i over time. We find that while our toy model can qualitatively explain the evolution of a number of ILRTs, the majority of our sample undergoes evolution more complex than predicted. The success of using the Na  i D doublet as a diagnostic tool for studying circumstellar material will rely on the availability of regular high-resolution spectral observations of multiple ILRTs, and more detailed spectral modelling will be required to produce models capable of explaining the diverse range of behaviours exhibited by ILRTs. In addition, the strength of the Na  i D absorption feature has been used as a means of estimating the extinction of sources, and we suggest that the variability visible in ILRTs would prevent such methods from being used for this class of transient, and any others showing evidence of variability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Magnetic reconnection is prevalent in magnetized plasmas in space and laboratories. Despite significant investigations on reconnection in electron–ion plasmas, studies of reconnection in magnetized plasmas with negatively charged dust grains are quite sparse. Here, we report the first fully kinetic simulations of collisionless reconnection in a three-species (i.e. electron, proton, and negatively charged dust grain) dusty plasma, through which the discovery of double Hall pattern is made. The double Hall pattern consists of a traditional Hall quadruple current in between the ion and electron diffusion region and a reversed Hall current in between the boundary of the ion and dust diffusion region. The analysis of the reconnection rate is also given. This study may be applicable to explain observations of planetary magnetospheres and the astrophysical objects, and may be realized in the laboratory studies of dusty plasmas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Young protostellar discs are likely to be both self-gravitating, and to support grain growth to sizes where the particles decoupled from the gas. This combination could lead to short-wavelength fragmentation of the solid component in otherwise non-fragmenting gas discs, forming Earth-mass solid cores during the Class 0/I stages of young stellar object evolution. We use three-dimensional smoothed particle hydrodynamics simulations of two-fluid discs, in the regime where the Stokes number of the particles St > 1, to study how the formation of solid clumps depends on the disc-to-star mass ratio, the strength of gravitational instability, and the Stokes number. Gravitational instability of the simulated discs is sustained by local cooling. We find that the ability of the spiral structures to concentrate solids increases with the cooling time and decreases with the Stokes number, while the relative dynamical temperature between gas and dust of the particles decreases with the cooling time and the disc-to-star mass ratio and increases with the Stokes number. Dust collapse occurs in a subset of high disc mass simulations, yielding clumps whose mass is close to linear theory estimates, namely 1–10 M⊕. Our results suggest that if planet formation occurs via this mechanism, the best conditions correspond to near the end of the self-gravitating phase, when the cooling time is long and the Stokes number close to unity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Motivated by observations of localized electrostatic wavepackets by the Cassini – and (earlier) by Voyager 1 and 2 – mission(s) in Saturn's magnetosphere, we have investigated the existence conditions and the dynamical evolution of localized multidimensional structures in the Saturnian dusty plasma environment. To this effect, we have adopted a plasma-fluid model for dust-ion acoustic excitations, taking into account the presence of a highly energetic (suprathermal, kappa-distributed) electron population in combination with massive dust dust particulates in the background. A multiple scales perturbation method was shown to lead to a Davey--Stewartson (DS) system of evolution equations, if one assumes perpendicular carrier wave propagation across the magnetic field (direction). The system is then shown to possess two regimes mainly, known in the literature as DS-I and DS-II. In the former case, if certain conditions are fulfilled, exponentially localized solutions are obtained, known as dromions. The combined effects of various physical parameters, such as the electron spectral index, the ambient magnetic field (strength), and the dust concentration, have been examined. A numerical investigation reveals that the dromion amplitude increases with higher dust concentration, whereas it decreases for lower κ e (i.e. with an increase in the suprathermal electron population component). A stronger magnetic field results in higher amplitude but narrower dromions. Our results provide a comprehensive framework for modeling modulated electrostatic wavepackets, in direct comparison with experimental data in planetary environments, in Saturn's magnetosphere and elsewhere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present 3D radiation-hydrodynamical (RHD) simulations of star cluster formation and evolution in massive, self-gravitating clouds, whose dust columns are optically thick to infrared (IR) photons. We use VETTAM – a recently developed, novel RHD algorithm, which uses the Variable Eddington Tensor closure – to model the IR radiation transport through the cloud. We also use realistic temperature (T) dependent IR opacities (κ) in our simulations, improving upon earlier works in this area, which used either constant IR opacities or simplified power laws (κ ∝  T 2). We investigate the impact of the radiation pressure of these IR photons on the star formation efficiency of the cloud, and its potential to drive dusty winds. We find that IR radiation pressure is unable to regulate star formation or prevent accretion on to the star clusters, even for very high gas surface densities (⁠|$\Sigma \gt 10^5 \, \mathrm{M}_{\odot } \, \mathrm{pc}^{-2}$|⁠), contrary to recent semi-analytic predictions and simulation results using simplified treatments of the dust opacity. We find that the commonly adopted simplifications of κ ∝  T 2 or constant κ for the IR dust opacities leads to this discrepancy, as those approximations overestimate the radiation force. By contrast, with realistic opacities that take into account the microphysics of the dust, we find that the impact of IR radiation pressure on star formation is very mild, even at significantly high dust-to-gas ratios (∼3 times solar), suggesting that it is unlikely to be an important feedback mechanism in controlling star formation in the ISM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent observations of substructures such as dust gaps and dust rings in protoplanetary discs have highlighted the importance of including dust into purely gaseous disc models. At the same time, computational difficulties arise with the standard models of simulating the dust and gas separately. These include the cost of accurately simulating the interactions between well-coupled dust and gas and issues of dust concentration in areas below resolution of the gas phase. We test a single-fluid approach that incorporates the terminal velocity approximation valid for small particles, which can overcome these difficulties, through modification of FARGO3D. We compare this single-fluid model with a multifluid model for a variety of planet masses. We find differences in the dust density distribution in all cases. For high-mass, gap-opening planets, we find differences in the amplitude of the resulting dust rings, which we attribute to the failure of the terminal velocity approximation around shocks. For low-mass planets, both models agree everywhere except in the corotation region, where the terminal velocity approximation shows overdense dust lobes. We tentatively interpret these as dusty equivalents of thermal lobes seen in non-isothermal simulations with thermal diffusion, but more work is necessary to confirm this. At the same resolution, the computational time for the terminal velocity approximation model is significantly less than a two-fluid model. We conclude that the terminal velocity approximation is a valuable tool for modelling a protoplanetary disc, but care should be taken when shocks are involved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this work, we investigate the characteristics of the group velocity of obliquely propagating Alfvén waves in a dusty plasma typical of a stellar wind. The dispersion relation is derived with the aid of the kinetic theory for a magnetized dusty plasma consisting of electrons and ions, with distribution of momenta described by a Maxwellian function. The dust particles are considered to be immobile and have all the same size; they are electrically charged by absorption of plasma particles via inelastic collisions and by photoionization. We numerically solve the dispersion relation and calculate the components of group velocity (along and transverse to the magnetic field) for the normal modes, namely the compressional and shear Alfvén waves (CAW and SAW). The results show that the direction of the group velocity of CAWs is greatly modified with the wave-vector direction. On the other hand, SAWs will present group velocity propagating practically along the magnetic field. The changes in dust parameters, such as number density and equilibrium electrical charge, may significantly change the waves' characteristics. It is seen that for sufficiently high dust to ion number density ratio, the SAWs may present perpendicular group velocity propagating in opposite direction to the perpendicular phase velocity, in a small interval of wavenumber values; we also notice that this interval may change, or even vanish, when the flux of radiation incident on the dust is altered, changing the equilibrium electrical charge of the grains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The physical properties of galaxies are encoded within their spectral energy distribution and require comparison with models to be extracted. These models must contain a synthetic stellar population and, where infrared data are to be used, also consider prescriptions for energy reprocessing and re-emission by dust. While many such models have been constructed, there are few analyses of the impact of stellar population model choice on derived dust parameters, or vice versa. Here, we apply a simple framework to compare the impact of these choices, combining three commonly used stellar population synthesis models and three dust emission models. We compare fits to the ultraviolet to far-infrared spectral energy distributions of a validation sample of infrared-luminous galaxies. We find that including different physics, such as binary stellar evolution, in the stellar synthesis model can introduce biases and uncertainties in the derived parameters of the dust and stellar emission models, largely due to differences in the far-ultraviolet emission available for reprocessing. This may help to reconcile the discrepancy between the cosmic star formation rate and stellar mass density histories. Notably the inclusion of a dusty stellar birth cloud component in the dust emission model provides more flexibility in accommodating the stellar population model, as its re-emission is highly sensitive to the ultraviolet radiation field spectrum and density. Binary populations favour a longer birth cloud dissipation time-scale than is found when assuming only single star population synthesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Motivated by observations of localized electrostatic wavepackets by the Voyager 1 and 2 and Cassini missions in Saturn's magnetosphere, we have investigated the evolution of modulated electrostatic wavepackets in a dusty plasma environment. The well-known dust-ion acoustic (DIA) mode was selected to explore the dynamics of multidimensional structures, by means of a Davey–Stewartson (DS) model, by taking into account the presence of a highly energetic (suprathermal, kappa-distributed) electron population in combination with heavy (immobile) dust in the background. The modulational (in)stability profile of DIA wavepackets for both negative as well as positive dust charge is investigated. A set of explicit criteria for modulational instability (MI) to occur is obtained. Wavepacket modulation properties in 3D dusty plasmas are shown to differ from e.g. Maxwellian plasmas in 1D. Stronger negative dust concentration results in a narrower instability window in the K (perturbation wavenumber) domain and to a suppressed growth rate. In the opposite manner, the instability growth rate increases for higher positive dust concentration and the instability window gets larger. In a nutshell, negative dust seems to suppress instability while positive dust appears to favour the amplitude modulation instability mechanism. Finally, stronger deviation from the Maxwell–Boltzmann equilibrium, i.e. smaller κ e values, lead(s) to stronger instability growth in a wider wavenumber window – hence suprathermal electrons favour MI regardless of the dust charge sign (i.e. for either positive or negative dust). The wavepacket modulation properties in 2D dusty plasmas thus differ from e.g. Maxwellian plasmas in 1D, both quantitatively and qualitatively, as indicated by a generalized dispersion relation explicitly derived in this paper (for the amplitude perturbation). Our results can be compared against existing experimental data in space, especially in Saturn's magnetosphere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The characteristics of Alfvén waves propagating in a direction oblique to the ambient magnetic field in a stellar wind environment are discussed. A kinetic formulation for a magnetized dusty plasma is adopted considering Maxwellian distributions of electrons and ions, and immobile dust particles electrically charged by absorption of plasma particles and by photoionization. The dispersion relation is numerically solved and the results are compared with situations previously studied where dust particles were not charged by photoionization, which is an important process in a stellar wind of a relatively hot star. We show that the presence of dust causes the shear Alfvén waves to present a region of wavenumber values with zero frequency and that the minimum wavelength for which the mode becomes dispersive again is roughly proportional to the radiation intensity to which the dust grains are exposed. The damping rates of both shear and compressional Alfvén waves are observed to decrease with increasing radiation flux, for the parameters considered. For the particular case where both modes present a region with null real frequency when the radiation flux is absent or weak, it is shown that when the radiation flux is sufficiently strong, the photoionization mechanism may cause this region to get smaller or even to vanish, for compressional Alfvén waves. In that case, the compressional Alfvén waves present non-zero frequency for all wavenumber values, while the shear Alfvén waves still present null frequency in a certain interval of wavenumber values, which gets smaller with the presence of radiation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The charging of fine particles within the photoelectron cloud is the key in characterizing the dusty plasma environment over sunlit locations. In this work, based on the statistical mechanics and charging kinetics of the floating dust particles within the photoelectron sheath over the sunlit lunar surface, the distribution of charge over floating particles has been investigated. The natural randomisation of the dust charging currents, the anisotropy in sheath photoelectron population and electric field/potential, and half Fermi–Dirac velocity distribution of the emitted photoelectrons have been consistently accounted for in the formulation. In this framework, due to natural fluctuation, the charge on the floating dust particles is shown to be distributed over a wide range (∼100 e). This random fluctuation in charge might alter the static equilibrium of the floating dust particles and induce an altitudinal fluctuation (∼10 %) about its mean position within the sheath. The concept and results suggest that the natural fluctuation of the dust charge could be a reason that the strict dust levitation under static force equilibrium is less likely to exhibit over the sunlit lunar surfaces. This effect of dust charge and subsequent altitudinal fluctuations have been found pronounced at larger latitudes (near the terminator region) and higher lunar altitudes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study radiation pressure due to Ly α line photons, obtaining and exploring analytical expressions for the force-multiplier, M F(N H, Z) = F α/(L α/ c), as a function of gas column density, N H, and metallicity, Z , for both dust-free and dusty media, employing a WKB approach for the latter case. Solutions for frequency offset emission to emulate non-static media moving with a bulk velocity v have also been obtained. We find that, in static media, Ly α pressure dominates over both photoionization and dust-mediated UV radiation pressure in a very wide parameter range (16 < log  N H < 23; −4 < log [ Z / Z ⊙] < 0). For example, it overwhelms the other two forces by |$\lower.5ex\hbox{$\,\, \buildrel\gt \over \sim \,\,$}10$| (300) times in standard (low- Z) star-forming clouds. Thus, in agreement with previous studies, we conclude that Ly α pressure plays a dominant role in the initial acceleration of the gas around luminous sources, and must be implemented in galaxy formation, evolution and outflow models and simulations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The photoelectron sheath and floating fine positively charged dust particles constitute two-component dusty plasma in the sunlit lunar regolith's vicinity. By including the charge fluctuation into photoelectron–dust dynamics, the lunar exospheric plasma is proposed to support the propagation of long-wavelength dust acoustic (DA) modes. Using the standard approach based on the dynamical equations for continuity, momentum, plasma potential, and dust charging along with Fowler's treatment of photoemission and non-Maxwellian nature of the sheath photoelectrons, the wave dispersion is derived. The dust charge variation modifies the usual DA wave dispersion and excites the ultralow frequency modes that propagate with sufficiently low phase speed. Such ultralow frequency modes are predicted as pronounced for smaller values of dust charge and sheath potential. The DA wave dispersion is also depicted as sensitive to the photoelectrons' energy distribution within the sheath. The quantitative estimates suggest that the nominal exospheric plasma may exhibit DA waves propagating with frequencies of the order of unity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stellar bow shocks, bow waves, and dust waves all result from the action of a star's wind and radiation pressure on a stream of dusty plasma that flows past it. The dust in these bows emits prominently at mid-infrared wavelengths in the range 8 to   60  |$\mu$| m. We propose a novel diagnostic method, the τ–η diagram, for analysing these bows, which is based on comparing the fractions of stellar radiative energy and stellar radiative momentum that is trapped by the bow shell. This diagram allows the discrimination of wind-supported bow shocks, radiation-supported bow waves, and dust waves in which grains decouple from the gas. For the wind-supported bow shocks, it allows the stellar wind mass-loss rate to be determined. We critically compare our method with a previous method that has been proposed for determining wind mass-loss rates from bow shock observations. This comparison points to ways in which both methods can be improved and suggests a downward revision by a factor of two with respect to previously reported mass-loss rates. From a sample of 23 mid-infrared bow-shaped sources, we identify at least four strong candidates for radiation-supported bow waves, which need to be confirmed by more detailed studies, but no strong candidates for dust waves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dust waves and bow waves result from the action of a star's radiation pressure on a stream of dusty plasma that flows past it. They are an alternative mechanism to hydrodynamic bow shocks for explaining the curved arcs of infrared emission seen around some stars. When gas and grains are perfectly coupled, for a broad class of stellar parameters, wind-supported bow shocks predominate when the ambient density is below |$100\, \mathrm{cm}^{-3}$|⁠. At higher densities radiation-supported bow shells can form, tending to be optically thin bow waves around B stars, or optically thick bow shocks around early O stars. For OB stars with particularly weak stellar winds, radiation-supported bow shells become more prevalent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The complete three-dimensional structure of the magnetic field within molecular clouds has eluded determination despite its high value in determining controlling factors in the star formation process, as it cannot be directly probed observationally. Considering that inclination of the magnetic field relative to the plane of sky is one of the major sources of depolarization of thermal emission from dust in molecular clouds, we propose here a new method to estimate the inclination angle of the cloud-scale magnetic field based on the statistical properties of the observed polarization fraction. We test this method using a series of Monte Carlo experiments and find that the method works well, provided that deviations of magnetic field direction from the averaged values are small. When applied to synthetic observations of numerical simulations of star-forming clouds, our method gives fairly accurate measurements of the mean magnetic field inclination angle (within 10°–25°), which can further be improved if we restrict our technique to regions of low dispersion in polarization angles |${\cal S}$|⁠. We tested our method on the BLASTPol polarimetric observations of the Vela C molecular cloud complex, which suggests that the magnetic field of Vela C has a high inclination angle (∼60°), consistent with previous analyses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We derive the single-fluid evolution equations describing a mixture made of a gas phase and an arbitrary number of dust phases, generalizing the approach developed by Laibe & Price. A generalization for continuous dust distributions as well as analytic approximations for strong drag regimes is also provided. This formalism lays the foundation for numerical simulations of dust populations in a wide range of astrophysical systems while avoiding limitations associated with a multiple-fluid treatment. The usefulness of the formalism is illustrated on a series of analytical problems, namely the dustybox, dustyshock and dustywave problems as well as the radial drift of grains and the streaming instability in protoplanetary discs. We find physical effects specific to the presence of several dust phases and multiple drag time-scales, including non-monotonic evolution of the differential velocity between phases and increased efficiency of the linear growth of the streaming instability. Interestingly, it is found that under certain conditions, large grains can migrate outwards in protoplanetary discs. This may explain the presence of small pebbles at several hundreds of astronomical units from their central star. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]