Langmuir rogue waves in electron-positron plasmas

Abstract

Progress in understanding the nonlinear Langmuir rogue waves which accompany collisionless electron-positron (e-p) plasmas is presented. The nonlinearity of the system results from the nonlinear coupling between small, but finite, amplitude Langmuir waves and quasistationary density perturbations in an e-p plasma. The nonlinear Schrödinger equation is derived for the Langmuir waves’ electric field envelope, accounting for small, but finite, amplitude quasistationary plasma slow motion describing the Langmuir waves’ ponderomotive force. Numerical calculations reveal that the rogue structures strongly depend on the electron/positron density and temperature, as well as the group velocity of the envelope wave. The present study might be helpful to understand the excitation of nonlinear rogue pulses in astrophysical environments, such as in active galactic nuclei, in pulsar magnetospheres, in neutron stars, etc.