Nonlinear periodic structures in a magnetized plasma with Cairns distributed electrons

Abstract

The electrostatic ion acoustic (IA) nonlinear periodic (cnoidal) waves are studied in a magnetized plasma comprising of cold ions and Cairns distributed electrons. By employing reductive perturbation technique (RPT), the nonlinear Korteweg-de Vries (KdV) and modified KdV (mKdV) equations are derived, and their cnoidal wave (CW) solutions are obtained. For a given set of plasma parameters, the present model supports both compressive and rarefactive nonlinear periodic structures. In the present work, the effects of plasma parameters like nonthermality of electrons ( $$\beta $$ ) and obliqueness ( $$ l_{z} $$ ) are investigated. It is found that increasing values of $$\beta $$ and $$l_{z}$$ lead to enhancement (reduction) in amplitude of IA compressive (rarefactive) nonlinear periodic structures. Our present study has some relevance to the CW structures observed in magnetosphere via POLAR and FAST spacecrafts.