Electric fields due to charged dust within a vortex

• DOI: 10.1063/5.0240977
• Publication Date: 2025-03-27T15:52:53Z
• Authors: Varun Sheel; S. Uttam; S. K. Mishra

Convective vortices that are dust-laden (dust devils) are common features on Mars and are believed to be an efficient mechanism for dust entrainment in the Martian atmosphere. The dust, which exhibits vertical and lateral size distributions within the dust devils, gets charged due to triboelectric charging. The charge separation in this process and weak atmospheric conductivity might yield a massive charge buildup and large electric fields within the vortex. For certain dust-atmospheric conditions, its magnitude is shown to exceed the atmospheric breakdown value, which may trigger lightning in the dust devils on Mars. Considering the importance of such induced fields at local scales, to lander and rover missions on Mars, we have developed a physics insight of the charge and electric field distribution within a dust devil and estimated them quantitatively.