Non-planar ion-acoustic solitary waves and their head-on collision in a plasma with nonthermal electrons and warm adiabatic ions

Journal Article · Tue Jan 15 04:00:00 EST 2013 · Physics of Plasmas

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4789749· OSTI ID:22113334

Jiuning, Han; Yonglin, He; Yan, Chen; Kezhi, Zhang; Baohong, Ma ^[1]

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1. 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, Journal Name: Physics of Plasmas Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 20; ISSN PHPAEN; ISSN 1070-664X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY
ASTROPHYSICS
COLLISIONS
DISTRIBUTION
ELECTRON TEMPERATURE
ION ACOUSTIC WAVES
ION TEMPERATURE
IONS
KORTEWEG-DE VRIES EQUATION
PERTURBATION THEORY
PHASE SHIFT
PLASMA
PLASMA SIMULATION
SIMULATION
TAIL ELECTRONS