On the role of stochastic heating in experiments with Complex Plasmas

Stochastic heating of dust particles resulting from dust charge fluctuations is considered in some laboratory situations, where high kinetic temperatures of dust particles have been suggested or could be observed. A particular case, in the conditions of the scrape-off layer in tokamak plasmas, is also considered and it is shown that kinetic energies corresponding to velocities of ≃ km/s can be reached in times of order ≃ 1 ms by micron-size particles interacting with a background of stochastically heated nanosize particles.