On the Possibility of Dust Grain Destruction by the Coloumb Explosion in Protoplanetary Disks

We consider the dust charging processes in protoplanetary disks. It is shown that in the atmosphere of a disk, grains can acquire anomalously high positive charges, which can lead to their destruction as a result of the Coulomb explosion. The charging is due to the combined effect of radiation from a protostar and of electron and ion currents from the surrounding plasma. For typical protoplanetary disk conditions, such a process turns out to be effective both for porous dust grains of micron sizes and for submicron crystalline grains. Critical charges that are necessary for the destruction of dust grains and the charges acquired by the particles are found for their different sizes and various parameters of the dusty plasmas. Critical grain sizes as functions of the distance to the host star are calculated. It is shown that the Coulomb explosion leads to the appearance of a cascade of crushing of large dust grains. The character of the dependence of crushing conditions on the dust particle radius can lead to the formation of a bimodal grain size distribution in some areas of protoplanetary disks. One fraction corresponds to large particles that are not subject to destruction and the other, to small particles of submicron size.