Nonplanar Shock Structures in a Relativistic Degenerate Multi-Species Plasma

Abstract

A nonlinear propagation of cylindrical and spherical modified ion-acoustic (mIA) waves in an unmagnetized, collisionless, relativistic, degenerate multi-species plasma has been investigated theoretically. This plasma system is assumed to contain non-relativistic degenerate light ions, both non-relativistic and ultra-relativistic degenerate electron and positron fluids, and arbitrarily charged static heavy ions. The restoring force is provided by the degenerate pressures of the electrons and positrons, whereas the inertia is provided by the mass of ions. The arbitrarily charged static heavy ions participate only in maintaining the quasi-neutrality condition at equilibrium. The modified Burgers (mB) equation is derived by using reductive perturbation technique and numerically analyzed to identify the basic features of mIA shock structures. The basic characteristics of mIA shock waves are found to be significantly modified by the effects of degenerate pressures of electron, positron, and ion fluids, their number densities, and various charge state of heavy ions. The implications of our results to dense plasmas in astrophysical compact objects (e.g., non-rotating white dwarfs, neutron stars, etc.) are briefly discussed.