Nonspherical zodiacal dust particles driven by radiation pressure

The evolution of the orbit of a nonspherical dust particle under the action of solar electromagnetic radiation is presented here. We consider the equation of motion of uncharged, arbitrarily shaped dust particles. The size of particles is up to tens of microns. For large particles the relevant nonradial components of radiation pressure are taken from experimental data. Detailed numerical solution of the vectorial components of cross sections for micron-sized dust grains is based on the DDA method.The time it takes for a particle to spiral into the Sun or another central star is proportional to reffα, where reff is the effective radius of the particle. αα equals 1 for spherical particles (the Poynting–Robertson effect) and αα is <1<1 for nonspherical grains. There is no systematic decrease or increase of the semi-major axis and eccentricity of the nonspherical particle.