Relativistic dynamical bistability and adiabatic excitation of strong plasma waves

Abstract

Adiabatic evolution of the nonlinear resonantly driven dynamical system generic to a variety of plasma physics problems, including generation of large-amplitude plasma waves in a plasma beat-wave accelerator, is studied. The properties of the resonant Hamiltonian and the dynamics of its phase space for adiabatically varying parameters are considered. It is shown that the system can exhibit bistability and the Hamiltonian of a bistable system always follows the same trajectory for the adiabatically varying driver regardless of whether the system is excited or left quiescent. Descriptions of the bistability, autoresonance, and their possible combination based on the properties of the resonant Hamiltonian are given.