Irregularities Associated With Creation of Dusty Plasmas in the Near-Earth Space Environment

Plasma irregularities associated with the creation of an artificial dust layer in the Earth´s ionosphere are investigated with a 2-D plasma simulation model. The scenario considered in this investigation is the production of electron irregularities due to growth of a plasma instability driven by inhomogeneities in the boundary between the background plasma and the expanding charged dust layer. The mechanism is shown to effectively generate irregularities for early times after a localized release of dust for the parameter regimes of upcoming space experiments.