Dust Charging and Dynamics in Tokamaks

Fundamental characteristics of charging of a dust particle and its dynamics in SOL/divertor plasma in tokamaks are studied. According to the OML (orbit motion limited) theory, the charging process is extremely faster, with a charging time of nanoseconds, than the dynamics process of the dust particle in SOL/divertor plasma, with a characteristic time of milliseconds, which means that the local charge state can be taken as the equilibrium charge state. It was clarified that the equilibrium charge Zd,eq can be determined in the form of Zd,eq / Rd Te, which is a function of both the normalized relative speed of plasma ion flow with respect to the velocity of the dust particle and the plasma temperature ratio. After the investigation of dominant forces acting on dust particles, the friction forces due to the plasma ion absorption and ion Coulomb scattering are found of the same order for the case of low relative speed. The critical radius of a dust particle, for which the gravity is larger than the friction forces due to plasma ions, is obtained.