Non-planar ion-acoustic solitary waves and their head-on collision in a plasma with nonthermal electrons and warm adiabatic ions
- College of Physics and Electromechanical Engineering, Hexi University, Zhangye 734000 (China)
By using the model of Cairns et al.[Geophys. Rev. Lett. 22, 2709 (1995)], the head-on collision of cylindrical/spherical ion-acoustic solitary waves in an unmagnetized non-planar plasma consisting of warm adiabatic ions and nonthermally distributed electrons is investigated. The extended Poincare-Lighthill-Kuo perturbation method is used to derive the modified Korteweg-de Vries equations for ion-acoustic solitary waves in this plasma system. The effects of the plasma geometry m, the ion to electron temperature ratio {sigma}, and the nonthermality of the electron distribution {alpha} on the interaction of the colliding solitary waves are studied. It is found that the plasma geometries have a big impact on the phase shifts of solitary waves. Also it is important to note that the phase shifts induced by the collision of compressive and rarefactive solitary waves are very different. We point out that this study is useful to the investigations about the observations of electrostatic solitary structures in astrophysical as well as in experimental plasmas with nonthermal energetic electrons.
- OSTI ID:
- 22113334
- Journal Information:
- Physics of Plasmas, Vol. 20, Issue 1; Other Information: (c) 2013 American Institute of Physics; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 1070-664X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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