Modeling Dust Behavior in Weakly Ionized Plasmas with Magnetic Fields: A Study using the DRIAD Code*

Complex plasma contains micron-sized dust particles in a weakly ionized gas. The dust becomes charged due to the collection of electrons and ions, influenced by the plasma temperature, gas density, and ambient electric field. The effect of magnetic fields on the charging and subsequent motion of the dust is less well understood, and depends on the degree of magnetization of the various charged species in the complex plasma.  Most theories and models consider spherical dust particles, but dust encountered in fusion and astrophysical environments can be quite irregular. To this end, we compare the charging of aggregates of dust particles without a magnetic field (B = 0 T)  to the charging of aggregates in a magnetic field (0 T < B < 3.5 T) by determining the changes to the electron and ion currents over the surface of an aggregate. The present study aims to investigate the specific alignment of aggregate, or irregular, grains in a plasma environment resulting from competing torques generated by electric and magnetic fields and other relevant forces.