The Frequency and Damping of Ion Acoustic Waves in Collisional and Collisionless Two-species Plasma

Abstract

The dispersion properties of ion acoustic waves (IAW) are sensitive to the strength of ion-ion collisions in multi-species plasma in which the different species usually have differing charge-to-mass ratios. The modification of the frequency and damping of the fast and slow acoustic modes in a plasma composed of light (low Z) and heavy (high Z) ions is considered. In the fluid limit where the light ion scattering mean free path, {lambda}{sub th} is smaller than the acoustic wavelength, {lambda} = 2{pi}/k, the interspecies friction and heat flow carried by the light ions scattering from the heavy ions causes the damping. In the collisionless limit, k{lambda}{sub th} >> 1, Landau damping by the light ions provides the dissipation. In the intermediate regime when k{lambda}{sub th} {approx} 1, the damping is at least as large as the sum of the collisional and Landau damping.