Alfven waves in space and astrophysical dusty plasmas

In this paper, we present some results of previous works on Alfven waves in a dusty plasma in different astrophysical and space regions by taking into account the effect of superthermal particles on the dispersive characteristics. We show that the presence of dust and superthermal particles sensibly modify the dispersion of Alfven waves. The competition between different damping processes of kinetic Alfven waves and Alfven cyclotron waves is analyzed. The nonlinear evolution of Alfven waves to chaos is reviewed. Finally, we discuss some applications of Alfven waves in the auroral region of space plasmas, as well as stellar winds and star-forming regions of astrophysical plasmas. is devoted to a short overview of the Lorentzian particle velocity distribution function and its effects on Alfven waves. The nonlinear evolution of large-amplitude Alfven waves to chaos is analyzed in Sect. 2.4. Various space and astrophysical applications of the interactions of Alfven waves with dust plasma particles are discussed in Sects. 3 and 4, respectively. Finally, a brief summary is given in Sect. 5.