Kinetic description of the screening of the charge of macroparticles in a nonequilibrium plasma

A new approach has been developed for the kinetic description of the screening of the charge of macroparticles and the determination of the distribution of the effective potential in a nonequilibrium plasma. The main concept of the new approach is the description of the absorption of electrons and ions by a macroparticle through introducing effective point sinks in the kinetic equations describing the dynamics of plasma particles. With the use of this approach, explicit relations for the effective potential are derived with allowance for the collisions of electrons and ions with neutrals of the buffer gas and in the presence of an external magnetic field.