Current-driven dust-acoustic instability in a collisional plasma

The excitation of the dust-acoustic instability in a collisional dusty plasma is investigated. For conditions similar to those of recent laboratory experiments with neutral gas pressures of similar to 100 mTorr, it is found that zero-order electric fields E-0 greater than or similar to 10 V m(-1) are sufficient for the growth of perturbations with centimeter wavelengths. Much larger wavelengths generally require larger values of E-0. Free electrons in the dusty plasma have a stabilizing effect, which can be very pronounced at the longest wavelengths. Copyright (C) 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd.