General formulation for electrostatic solitons in multicomponent nonthermal plasmas

B. J. Wang, L. N. Hau

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

11 Scopus citations

Abstract

A general formulation is proposed for electrostatic solitons in multicomponent plasmas consisting of one cold species described by the fluid model and multiple hot components described by the kinetic equation. For hot species two types of generalized velocity distributions are adopted: the kappa function and the highly nonthermal distribution with two free parameters which incorporate the widely used nonthermal distribution proposed by Cairns et al (1995 Geophys. Res. Lett. 22 2709) as a special limit. The general expressions for the KdV equations and the Sagdeev potential, as well as the conditions for electrostatic solitons with positive or negative polarity, are derived, which may give rise to various solutions for acoustic solitons in multicomponent plasmas with generalized nonthermal velocity distributions.

Original languageEnglish
Article number095012
JournalPlasma Physics and Controlled Fusion
Volume57
Issue number9
DOIs
StatePublished - 12 Aug 2015

Keywords

  • electrostatic soliton
  • multicomponent plasmas
  • nonthermal plasmas

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'General formulation for electrostatic solitons in multicomponent nonthermal plasmas'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this