Large amplitude dust-acoustic double layers in non-thermal plasmas with positive and negative dust

Abstract

The existence of large amplitude double layers in a plasma composed of cold negative dust, adiabatic positive dust, non-thermal ions and Boltzmann electrons is investigated using the Sagdeev pseudopotential technique. Both positive potential and negative potential double layers are found to be supported by the model. The variation of the maximum amplitudes of the double layers and corresponding Mach numbers are examined as a function of various plasma parameters. In particular, we investigate to what extent ion non-thermal effects are required for positive potential double layers to occur.