Characteristics of nonlinear ion-acoustic waves in collisional plasmas with ionization effects

Abstract

In this work, we have investigated the linear and nonlinear propagation of ion-acoustic solitary waves in a collisional plasma composed of isothermal warm ions and a population of nonthermal electrons generated from the Kappa, Tsallis, and Cairns distribution. The effects of ionization, ion loss, and ion-neutral collision on ion-acoustic waves are also considered here. The standard reductive perturbation theory has been used to study the small but finite amplitude solitons. It is found that the nonlinear dynamics of the considered system are governed by the damped Korteweg-de Vries (dK-dV) equation. The solution of the damped K-dV equation is analyzed numerically. The effects of the nonthermal parameters, namely , , and on the ion-acoustic wave structures are discussed. Moreover, the effects ionization, ion loss, and ion-neutral collisions on solitary wave structures are also investigated here. It is shown that ionization effects lead to the growth of the IA solitons whereas collisions reduce this growth rate.