Instability of the ionization-absorption balance in a complex plasma at ion time scales

The stability of ion plasma perturbations is investigated in a homogeneous isotropic complex plasma, where a balance between plasma creation due to ionization and plasma loss due to the absorption on dust particles has been reached. The analysis is performed on the basis of a self-consistent fluid description including dust charge variations and ion-neutral friction. It is shown that the stability depends primarily on the nature of the ionization source. For an ionization source proportional to the electron density, an instability takes place at wave numbers below a certain threshold, and the instability mechanism is explained in detail. No instability is found for a constant ionization source.