Instability of dust acoustic waves in an accelerating dusty plasma

It is shown that the free energy associated with an accelerating dusty plasma can drive dust acoustic waves (DAWs). For this purpose, a dispersion relation for the DAWs is derived incorporating collisional and dust charge fluctuation damping. The dispersion relation reveals that DAWs propagating in the direction of the plasma acceleration are subjected to instability whose growth rate is proportional to k(z)g(z), where k(z) and g(z) are the components of the wavevector and acceleration of the plasma along the vertical direction. The relevance of our investigation to laboratory and space dusty plasmas is discussed.