We study the response of a semi-bounded one-component fully degenerate electron plasma to an initial perturbation in the electrostatic limit. We show that the part of the electric potential corresponding to surface waves in such plasma can be represe
nted, at large times, as the sum of two terms, one term corresponding to conventional (Langmuir) surface waves and the other term representing a new type of surface waves resulting from specific analytic properties of degenerate plasmas dielectric response function. These two terms are characterized by different oscillation frequencies (for a given wave number), and, while the conventional terms amplitude decays exponentially with time, the new term is characterized by a slower, power-law decay of the oscillation amplitude and is therefore dominant at large times.
It is shown that the attractive force between ions in a degenerate quantum plasma, recently predicted by Shukla and Eliasson [Shukla, Eliasson, PRL 108, 165007 (2012), arXiv:1112.5556] using a generalized quantum hydrodynamical model, is dwarfed by t
he attractive force due to kinetic effects that cannot be accounted for in the previous model. This suggests that the problem of charge shielding in a degenerate quantum plasma should necessarily be a kinetic one, providing the dominant part of the attractive force.
Surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) in a semi-bounded degenerate plasma (e.g., a metal) are studied using the quasiclassical mean-field kinetic model, taking into account the spatial dispersion of the plasma (due to quantum degeneracy of electrons) and
electron-ion (electron-lattice, for metals) collisions. SPP dispersion and damping are obtained in both retarded ($omega/k_zsim c$) and non-retarded ($omega/k_zll c$) regions, as well as in between. It is shown that the plasma spatial dispersion significantly affects the properties of SPPs, especially at short wavelengths (less than the collisionless skin depth, $lambdalesssim c/omega_{pe}$). Namely, the collisionless (Landau) damping of SPPs (due to spatial dispersion) is comparable to the purely collisional (Ohmic) damping (due to electron-lattice collisions) in a wide range of SPP wavelengths, e.g., from $lambdasim20$ nm to $lambdasim0.8$ nm for SPP in gold at T=293 K, and from $lambdasim400$ nm to $lambdasim0.7$ nm for SPPs in gold at T=100 K. The spatial dispersion is also shown to affect, in a qualitative way, the dispersion of SPPs at short wavelengths $lambdalesssim c/omega_{pe}$.
Surface plasmons (SP) in a semi-bounded quantum plasma with degenerate electrons (e.g., a metal) is considered, and some interesting consequences of electron Pauli blocking for the SP dispersion and temporal attenuation are discussed. In particular,
it is demonstrated that a semi-bounded degenerate plasma with a sharp boundary supports two types of SP with distinct frequencies and qualitatively different temporal attenuation, in contrast to a non-degenerate plasma that only supports one type of SP citep{Guernsey_1969}.
The electrostatic shielding of a charged absorbing object (dust grain) in a flowing collisionless plasma is investigated by using the linearized kinetic equation for plasma ions with a point-sink term accounting for ion absorption on the object. The
effect of absorption on the attractive part of the grain potential is investigated. For subthermal ion flows, the attractive part of the grain potential in the direction perpendicular to the ion flow can be significantly reduced or completely destroyed, depending on the absorption rate. For superthermal ion flows, however, the effect of absorption on the grain attraction in the direction perpendicular to the ion flow is shown to be exponentially weak. It is thus argued that, in the limit of superthermal ion flow, the effect of absorption on the grain shielding potential can be safely ignored for typical grain sizes relevant to complex plasmas.
