Electrostatic solitary waves and hole structures generated by bump-on-tail instability in electron-positron plasmas.

Abstract

Electrostatic solitary waves (ESWs) and solitons are widely present in the solar system plasma environment. Many theoretical and numerical studies have been carried out to address the formation and structure of ESWs and solitons in electron-ion plasmas. Due to the inertia symmetry, the issue of whether solitons can exist in pair plasmas has been raised and has been discussed in a number of papers. Recently, we have shown that interlacing electron and positron holes in phase space associated with periodic positive and negative potentials may be generated by current-free electron and positron beams streaming in stationary electron-positron background plasmas [Jao and Hau, Phys. Rev. E 86, 056401 (2012)]. The question remains of whether pure electron or positron holes with positive or negative polarity may exist in neutral electron-positron plasmas. In this paper, we show the formation of electron (positron) holes associated with ESWs of positive (negative) potential based on the particle-in-cell simulations of bump-on-tail streaming instability in pair plasmas. The fluid theory shows that the coexistence of two unstable modes with different wavelengths is the essential condition for the generation of electrostatic solitons and hole structures in an electron-positron plasma.