Interaction potential of microparticles in a plasma: Role of collisions with plasma particles

The interaction potential of two charged microparticles in a plasma is studied. Violation of the plasma equilibrium around the dust particles due to plasma-particle inelastic collisions results in three effects: long-range (non-Yukawa) electrostatic repulsion, attraction due to ion shadowing, and attraction or repulsion due to neutral shadowing (depending on the sign of the temperature difference between the particle surface and neutral gas). An analytical expression for the total potential is obtained and compared with previous theoretical results. The relative contribution of these effects is studied in two limiting cases-an isotropic bulk plasma and the plasma sheath region. The results obtained are compared with existing experimental results on pair particle interaction. The possibility of the so-called dust molecule formation is discussed.