Electrostatic interaction between dust particles in weakly ionized complex plasmas

The electrostatic potential around a dust particle in a complex plasma is calculated, taking into account ion-neutral collisions and collective effects, in a range of plasma parameters relevant for typical laboratory experiments. The existence of attractive wells and dependence of their shape on the main experimental control parameters, neutral gas pressure, and dust number density, is investigated. (c) 2006 American Institute of Physics.