Slowing down of charged particles in the dusty plasmas with a non-thermal velocity alpha-distribution

Abstract

The slowing down of a charged particle beam passing through the dusty plasma with a non-thermal velocity alpha-distribution is studied. By using the Fokker-Planck collision theory, we derive the deceleration factor and slowing down time and make the numerical analyses. We show that the non-thermal velocity alpha-distributions of the plasma components have a significant effect on the slowing down. With increase of the mean velocity, the deceleration factor increases rapidly, reaches a peak and then decreases gradually. And the entire peak of the deceleration factor moves generally to the right with the increase of the alpha-parameter. The slowing down time decreases with the increase of the non-thermal alpha-parameter, and so the slowing down time in the non-thermal dusty plasma is generally less than that in a Maxwellian one.