Weakly ionized plasma in a supersonic plasma flow

Abstract

The structure of the ion acoustic precursor of a shock wave in a weakly ionized collision-dominated plasma is studied numerically. It is shown that the simultaneous action of the nonlinearity, dispersion, and dissipation leads to the formation of an oscillating profile of the ion density in the precursor. There exist regimes in which the charged-particle density decreases abruptly and simultaneously the number of maxima in its profile within the precursor becomes smaller as the shock wave velocity increases in a jumplike manner. This effect is analogous to the corresponding hydrodynamic effect in narrow shallow channels (the “Houston's horse” effect). In the stage preceding this jumplike process, local regions may appear in which the degree of plasma ionization is elevated. Such plasma “bunches” give rise to the strong reverse action of the charged particles on the neutral component, resulting in the “stretching” of the precursor. This phenomenon is resonant in character and occurs in a narrow range of shock wave velocities.