Cairns-Gurevich equation for soliton in plasma expansion into vacuum

Abstract

Plasma expansion and soliton formation in laser created plasma are addressed. Nonlinear acoustic waves in plasma where the combined effect of trapped and non-thermal electrons are dealt with, in plasma expansion are studied. Using the perturbation method, a modified Korteweg–de Vries equation (mKdV) that describes how the ion acoustic waves (IAW) are derived. The plasma is modeled by a Cairns distribution function for non-thermal electrons combined with Gurevich distribution function for the trapped electrons. It is found that parameters taken into account have significant effects on the properties of nonlinear waves as well as on plasma expansion into vacuum. We point out, that this work has been motivated by space and laboratory plasma observations of plasmas containing energetic particles, combined with trapped particles. Furthermore, this study is of interest in the context of the investigation of mono-energetic ion beams from intense laser interactions with plasmas.