Date of Graduation

2015

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Type

PhD

College

Eberly College of Arts and Sciences

Department

Physics and Astronomy

Committee Chair

Mark E Koepke

Committee Co-Chair

Paul Cassak

Committee Member

David Lewellen

Committee Member

Maura McLaughlin

Committee Member

Earl Scime

Abstract

Gyro-phase drift is a guiding center drift that is directly dependent on the charging rate limit of dust grains. The effect of introducing a gyro-phase-dependence on the grain charge leads to two orthogonal components of guiding-center drift. One component, referred to here as grad-q drift results from the time-varying, gyro-phase angle dependent, in-situ-equilibrium grain charge, assuming that the grain charging is instantaneous. For this component, the grain is assumed to be always in its in-situ-equilibrium charge state and this state gyro-synchronously varies with respect to the grain's average charge state. The other component, referred to here as the gyro-phase drift, arises from any non-instantaneous-charging-induced modification of the grad-q drift and points in the direction associated with increasing magnitude of in-situ-equilibrium charge state. Gyro-synchronous grain charge modulation may arise from either abrupt or gradual inhomogeneity in plasma conditions. In the abrupt inhomogeneity, q1 is the in-situ-equilibrium charge on one side of the inhomogeneity, q2 is the in-situ equilibrium charge on the other side, q1 Gyro-synchronous grain charge modulation may arise from either abrupt or gradual inhomogeneity in plasma conditions. In the abrupt inhomogeneity, q1 is the in-situ-equilibrium charge on one side of the inhomogeneity, q2 is the in-situ equilibrium charge on the other side, q1.

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