Trapped electrons and solitary waves in non-uniform mixture of ionized gases

Abstract

Nonlinear electrostatic structures are investigated in a non-uniform mixture of two ionized gases which account for the effects of electron trapping, nonextensivity and field-aligned shear flow of one ion species relative to the other. Since electron trapping, a prerequisite for structure formation, introduces a stronger nonlinearity therefore stationary descriptions are represented by a Schamel rather than a Korteweg–de Vries equation. For a given solitary pulse width, the amplitude is hence consequently larger. The shear flow also enhances the amplitude while increased population of the energetic electrons is destructive for the solitary structures. This theoretical model is a general one and here it is applied to a mixture of oxygen–hydrogen plasma of the F-region ionosphere for illustration.