Dust in Jupiter's magnetosphere: An Io source?

We have investigated the possibility of removing particles from Io by interactions with the Jovian magnetosphere. We find that dust grains of about 0.1 µm radius will rapidly become charged if exposed to the ambient Jovian plasma. For particles this size in Io's volcanic plumes, the Lorentz force can overcome Io's gravity and these particles can escape. Escaping dust will be controlled by the topology of the magnetosphere and we suggest that Io derived dust may be an important source of erosive impacts on large Jovian ring particles and destructive collisions with small particles. The ring particles themselves will interact with the Jovian plasma and we suggest that coulomb scattering of plasma particles by charged dust grains may produce a plasma gap or void in the vicinity of the rings.