Nonlinear collisionless plasma wakes of small particles

The wake behind a spherical particle smaller than the Debye length (lambda(De)) in flowing plasma is calculated using a particle-in-cell code. The results with different magnitudes of charge reveal substantial nonlinear effects down to values that for a floating particle would correspond to a particle radius similar to 10(-2)lambda(De). The peak potential in the oscillatory wake structure is strongly suppressed by nonlinearity, never exceeding similar to 0.4 times the unperturbed ion energy. By contrast, the density peak arising from ion focusing can be many times the ambient. Strong heating of the ions occurs in the nonlinear regime. Direct ion absorption by the particle is not important for the far wake unless the radius exceeds 10(-1)lambda(De), and is therefore never significant (for the far wake) in the linear regime. Reasonable agreement with full-scale linear response calculations are obtained in the linear regime. The wake wavelength is confirmed and an explanation, in terms of the conical potential structure, is proposed for experimentally-observed oblique alignment of different-sized grains. (C) 2011 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3562885]