Effects of dust size distribution on dust acoustic waves in two-dimensional unmagnetized dusty plasma

For unmagnetized dusty plasma with many different dust grain species containing both hot isothermal electrons and ions, both the linear dispersion relation and the Kadomtsev-Petviashvili equation for small, but finite amplitude dust acoustic waves are obtained. The linear dispersion relation is investigated numerically. Furthermore, the variations of amplitude, width, and propagation velocity of the nonlinear solitary wave with an arbitrary dust size distribution function are studied as well. Moreover, both the power law distribution and the Gaussian distribution are approximately simulated by using appropriate arbitrary dust size distribution functions. (C) 2008 American Institute of Physics.