Electric reconnection and chaos in dusty and dirty plasmas

Summary form only given. A new concept of electric field line merging-reconnection is developed which has been introduced by the present author, based on space charge and electric field transport for electrohydrodynamics (EHD). This concept is analogous to magnetic field line merging-reconnection in magnetohydrodynamics (MHD). The origin of electric merging-reconnection is an electric cusp (neutral point, line, or sheet) that be comes a bifurcation point in the electric potential and at the same time a saddle point in the electric field, being capable for a source-origin of chaos. A simplest idealized form of electric cusp can be obtained from a symmetrical quadrupole and its center of diagonal forms an electric cusp. When a spherical noncharged dust particle, conducting or dielectric is inserted in the cusp region, positive and negative charges are induced or polarized on the surface of the particle, facing the negative and positive electrodes, respectively. As a result, electric field line merging takes place toward the particle from the four quarters and reversed field lines tend to reconnect each other through the particle. If the particle is negatively or positively charged, reversed field lines of force from two electrodes tend to reconnect each other through the particle. Once the particle is shifted slightly out of the cusp center, whether it is charged or noncharged, a rapidly increasing electric force tends to be exerted on the particle, accelerating it to a very high speed.