Dust ion-acoustic shock-wave structures: Theory and laboratory experiments

An evolutionary theoretical model is developed that describes dust ion-acoustic shock waves in dusty plasma consisting of ions (treated in the hydrodynamic approximation), Boltzmann electrons, and variable-charge dust grains. Account is taken not only of ionization, absorption, momentum loss by electrons and ions in collisions with dust grains, and gas-kinetic pressure effects but also of the processes peculiar to laboratory plasmas. It is shown that the model is capable of describing all the main experimental results on dust ion-acoustic shock waves [Q.-Z. Luo $et al$., Phys. Plasmas 6, 3455 (1999); Y. Nakamura $et al.$, Phys. Rev. Lett., 83, 1602 (1999)].