JEANS INSTABILITY OF A DUSTY PLASMA

We study the linear and the nonlinear stages of the Jeans instability of charged grains with mass m(d) and charge q(d) in the regime Gm(d)2/q(d)2 almost-equal-to O(1). Various conditions for stable electrostatic levitation, condensation, and dispersion of grains in the plasma background are obtained. The nonlinear solutions show that there is a condensation of grains even when the effect of self-gravity is annulled by self-electrostatic repulsion. Astrophysical situations relevant to the results are briefly discussed.