Head on collision of multi-solitons in an electron-positron-ion plasma having superthermal electrons

Abstract

The head-on collision and overtaking collision of four solitons in a plasma comprising superthermal electrons, cold ions, and Boltzmann distributed positrons are investigated using the extended Poincare-Lighthill-Kuo (PLK) together with Hirota's method. PLK method yields two separate Korteweg-de Vries (KdV) equations where solitons obtained from any KdV equation move along a direction opposite to that of solitons obtained from the other KdV equation, While Hirota's method gives multi-soliton solution for each KdV equation all of which move along the same direction where the fastest moving soliton eventually overtakes the other ones. We have considered here two soliton solutions obtained from Hirota's method. Phase shifts acquired by each soliton due to both head-on collision and overtaking collision are calculated analytically.