Obliquely propagating ion-acoustic solitons in a multi-component magnetized plasma with negative ions

Abstract

Oblique propagation of ion-acoustic solitons in a magnetized low-β plasma consisting of warm positive and negative ion species along with hot electrons is studied. Using the reductive perturbation method, a KdV equation is derived for the system, which admits an obliquely propagating soliton solution. It is found that if the ions have finite temperatures then there exist two types of modes, namely slow and fast ion-acoustic modes. The parameter determining the nature of soliton (i.e. whether the system will support compressive or rarefactive solitons) is different for slow and fast modes. For the slow mode the parameter is the relative temperature of the two ion species, whereas for the fast mode it is the relative concentraion of the two ion species. For the fast mode it is found that there is a critical value of the negative-ion concentration below which only compressive solitons exist and above which rarefactive solitons exist. To discuss the soliton solution at the critical concentration, a modified KdV equation is derived. It is found that at the critical concentration of negative ions compressive and rarefactive solitons co-exist. The effects of temperature of different ion species, angle of obliqueness and magnetization on the characteristics of the solitons are discussed in detail.