Kinetic Simulation Study of Electron Holes Dynamics During Collisions of Ion-Acoustic Solitons

Abstract

Ion acoustic (IA) solitons are accompanied by vortex-shaped nonlinear structures (e.g., hollows, plateaus, or humps) in the electron distribution function, called electron holes, portraying trapped electrons. These structures appear as charged flexible clouds (shielded by the background plasma) in the phase space with their own inertia, depending on the number of trapped electrons. According to simulation studies, electron holes tend to merge in pairs until one accumulative hole remains in the simulation box. This tendency has been analytically and qualitatively explained in the frame of the energy conservation principle. However, electron holes accompanying IA solitons should not merge due to the stability of IA solitons against mutual collisions. In this report based on a fully kinetic simulation approach, detailed study of the collisions of IA solitons reveals the behavior of electron holes under these two conflicting predictions, i.e., stability against mutual collisions and merging tendency. Four main results are reported here. First, we find that among the three different types of collisions possible for electron holes, just two of them happen for electron holes accompanying IA solitons. We present different collisions, e.g., two large/small and large versus small holes, to cover all these three different types of collisions. Second, we show that although electron holes merge during collisions of IA solitons, the stability of IA solitons forces the merged hole to split and form new electron holes. Third, we reveal that holes share their trapped population during collisions. Postcollision holes incorporate some parts of the oppositely propagating before-collision holes. Finally, it is shown that the newly added population of trapped electrons goes through a spiral path inside the after-collision holes because of dissipative effects. This spiral is shown to exist in the early stage of the formation of the holes in the context of the IA soliton dynamics.