Nonlinear Wave-Wave Interactions in Quantum Plasmas

Journal Article · Tue Dec 14 00:00:00 EST 2010 · AIP Conference Proceedings

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.3533176· OSTI ID:21506941

Misra, A P ^[1]; Shukla, P K ^[2]

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1. Department of Physics, Umeaa University, SE-901 87 Umeaa (Sweden)
2. RUB International Chair, International Centre for Advanced Studies in Physical Sciences, Faculty of Physics and Astronomy, Ruhr University Bochum, D-44780 Bochum (Germany)

Wave-wave interaction in plasmas is a topic of important research since the 16th century. The formation of Langmuir solitons through the coupling of high-frequency (hf) Langmuir and low-frequency (lf) ion-acoustic waves, is one of the most interesting features in the context of turbulence in modern plasma physics. Moreover, quantum plasmas, which are ubiquitous in ultrasmall electronic devices, micromechanical systems as well as in dense astrophysical environments are a topic of current research. In the light of notable interests in such quantum plasmas, we present here a theoretical investigation on the nonlinear interaction of quantum Langmuir waves (QLWs) and quantum ion-acoustic waves (QIAWs), which are governed by the one-dimensional quantum Zakharov equations (QZEs). It is shown that a transition to spatiotemporal chaos (STC) occurs when the length scale of excitation of linear modes is larger than that of the most unstable ones. Such length scale is, however, to be larger (compared to the classical one) in presence of the quantum tunneling effect. The latter induces strong QIAW emission leading to the occurrence of collision and fusion among the patterns at an earlier time than the classical case. Moreover, numerical simulation of the QZEs reveals that many solitary patterns can be excited and saturated through the modulational instability (MI) of unstable harmonic modes. In a longer time, these solitons are seen to appear in the state of STC due to strong QIAW emission as well as by the collision and fusion in stochastic motion. The energy in the system is thus strongly redistributed, which may switch on the onset of Langmuir turbulence in quantum plasmas.

• OSTI ID: 21506941
• Journal Information: AIP Conference Proceedings, Vol. 1306, Issue 1; Conference: Workshop on new frontiers in advanced plasma physics, Trieste (Italy), 5-16 Jul 2010; Other Information: DOI: 10.1063/1.3533176; (c) 2010 American Institute of Physics; ISSN 0094-243X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
ASTROPHYSICS
CHAOS THEORY
COLLISIONS
COMPUTERIZED SIMULATION
COUPLING
ELECTRONIC EQUIPMENT
EMISSION
EQUATIONS
EXCITATION
INSTABILITY
INTERACTIONS
ION ACOUSTIC WAVES
LANGMUIR FREQUENCY
NONLINEAR PROBLEMS
ONE-DIMENSIONAL CALCULATIONS
QUANTUM PLASMA
SOLITONS
STOCHASTIC PROCESSES
SWITCHES
TUNNEL EFFECT
TURBULENCE
ELECTRICAL EQUIPMENT
ENERGY-LEVEL TRANSITIONS
EQUIPMENT
ION WAVES
MATHEMATICS
PHYSICS
PLASMA
PLASMA WAVES
QUASI PARTICLES
SIMULATION