Presence Of Nonthermal Electrons Research Articles

ITG mode driven vortices in spatially inhomogeneous magnetoplasma with generalized (r, q) distribution

In this paper, we have investigated the ion temperature gradient (ITG) driven electrostatic drift waves in the presence of non-thermal electrons that follow the generalized (r, q) distribution. In the linear regime, we have derived the linear dispersion relation of the coupled drift-ion acoustic wave. In the nonlinear regime, stationary solutions of the nonlinear equations have been obtained in the presence of gradients in equilibrium density, temperature and magnetic field. It has been found that the tail parameter q and the flatness parameter r strongly affect the profiles of linear and non-linear propagation characteristics of ITG driven electrostatic drift ion acoustic waves. It has been found that the flat-topped distribution augments the growth rate of the ITG driven electrostatic modes under consideration which is undesirable from the confinement stand point. It has also been shown that the double spectral indices r and q affect the structure of the nonlinear vortex structures. The comparison of the spatial scales over which vortices are formed for different distributions has also been presented.

Can the Kappa-distributed Electron Energies Account for the Intensity Ratios of O ii Lines in Photoionized Gaseous Nebulae?

Abstract A vexing puzzle in the study of planetary nebulae and H ii regions is that the plasma diagnostic results based on collisionally excited lines systematically differ from those based on recombination lines. A fairly speculative interpretation is the presence of nonthermal electrons with the so-called κ energy distributions, yet there is little observational evidence to verify or disprove this hypothesis. In this paper, we examine the influence of κ-distributed electrons on the emissivities of O ii recombination lines using an approximate method, where the rate coefficients for a κ distribution are computed by summing Maxwellian–Boltzmann rate coefficients with appropriate weights. The results show that if invoking κ-distributed electrons, the temperatures derived from the [O iii] (λ4959 + λ5007)/λ4363 ratios could coincide with those estimated from the O ii λ4649/λ4089 ratios. However, the estimated temperatures and κ values are not in agreement with those obtained through comparing the [O iii] (λ4959 + λ5007)/λ4363 ratios and the hydrogen recombination spectra, suggesting that the electron energy is unlikely to follow the κ-distributions over a global scale of the nebular regions. Nevertheless, based on this observation alone, we cannot definitely rule out the presence of κ-distributed electrons in some microstructures within nebulae.

Resonant instabilities of kinetic Alfvén waves in the Earth's magnetosphere with superthermal electrons

A theoretical plasma model for the generation of kinetic Alfvén waves (KAWs), having background Maxwellian ions, κ-electrons, and drifting Maxwellian beam ions, is discussed. The ion beam streams along the ambient magnetic field, whereas velocity shear is perpendicular to it. The role played by nonthermal electrons in the excitation of resonant KAWs with the velocity shear in the ion beam as the free energy source is examined. In the presence of κ-electrons, the effect of plasma parameters such as propagation angle, ion beam temperature, number density, and ion plasma βi on the growth of the KAWs is analyzed. It is found that nonthermal electrons restrict the excitation of KAWs by reducing the growth rate of the waves. It is inferred that a high velocity shear and ion beam density are required to excite KAWs in the presence of nonthermal electrons. The model is capable of producing waves with frequencies up to ≈18 mHz in the auroral region of Earth's magnetosphere.

Dust Ion Acoustic Solitary Structures at the Acoustic Speed in the Presence of Nonthermal Electrons and Isothermal Positrons

The Sagdeev pseudo-potential technique and the analytic theory developed by Das et al. [J. Plasma Phys. 78, 565 (2012)] have been used to investigate the dust ion acoustic solitary structures at the acoustic speed in a collisionless unmagnetized dusty plasma consisting of negatively charged static dust grains, adiabatic warm ions, nonthermal electrons and isothermal positrons. The present system supports both positive and negative potential solitary waves at the acoustic speed, but the system does not support the coexistence of solitary structures of opposite polarity at the acoustic speed. The system also supports negative potential double layer at the acoustic speed, but does not support positive potential double layer. Although the system supports positive potential supersoliton at the supersonic speed, but there does not exist supersoliton of any polarity at the acoustic speed. Solitary structures have been investigated with the help of compositional parameter spaces and the phase portraits of the dynamical system describing the nonlinear behaviour of the dust ion acoustic waves at the acoustic speed. For the case, when there is no positron in the system, there exist negative potential double layer and negative potential supersoliton at the acoustic speed and for such case, the mechanism of transition of supersoliton to soliton after the formation of double layer at the acoustic speed has been discussed with the help of phase portraits. The differences between the solitary structures at the acoustic speed and the solitary structures at the supersonic speed have been analysed with the help of phase portraits.

Modulational instability of acoustic waves in a dusty plasma with nonthermal electrons and trapped ions

Abstract In the present work, employing the nonlinear field equations of a hot dusty plasma in the presence of nonthermal electrons and trapped ions, we studied the amplitude modulation of nonlinear waves in such a plasma medium by use of the reductive perturbation method and obtained the modified nonlinear Schrodinger equation. The modulational instability (MI) was investigated and the effects of the proportion of the fast electrons (α), the trapping parameter (b) and the plasma parameters such as the dust-ion temperature ratio (σd), the partial unperturbed electron to dust density (δ), and the ion-electron temperature ratio (σi) on it was discussed. For the investigation of modulational instability problems three parameters P/Q, Kmax and Γmax play the central role. The variations of these parameters with the wave number k and the other physical parameters are discussed and the possibility of occurence of modulational instability is indicated.

Electrostatic wave instability and soliton formation with non-thermal electrons in O-H plasma of ionosphere

It is pointed out that the presence of non-thermal electrons and protons in oxygen plasma of the ionosphere plays a destructive role in the formation of electrostatic structures by nonlinear ion acoustic waves (IAWs). On the other hand, linear electrostatic perturbations at different IAW frequencies are excited by the field-aligned shear flow in oxygen-hydrogen plasma of the upper ionosphere, and non-thermal electrons cause an increase in the growth rate. The excitation of IAW and formation of solitary structures in the ionosphere are investigated at altitudes of 600 km and 1000 km in the auroral region.

Ion-Temperature-Gradient-Driven Modes with Nonthermal Electron Distributions in Bi-ion Dusty Magnetoplasma

The effect of nonthermal distributions of electrons on ion-temperature-gradient (ITG)-driven drift modes in the presence of tiny dust particles for bi-ion magneto plasmas is investigated. The dynamics of bi-ions and dust particles is considered for the study of low-frequency (less than the gyrofrequencies of dust and ions) ITG mode. A new dispersion relation is derived and analyzed numerically as well as analytically. Three different distributions for nonthermal electrons (Kappa, q, and Cairns distribution) are used. It is found that the presence of nonthermal electrons in bi-ion dusty magnetoplasma reduces the growth rate of the ITG instability. These results should be useful for laboratory and space plasmas where nonthermal electrons and dust is always present.

Non-thermal effects of electrons on stopbands of fast ion-acoustic solitons

The occurrence of a stopband which is a forbidden range in soliton speeds was recently reported to occur for fast ion-acoustic solitons in a model with cold ions, warm adiabatic ions, and Boltzmann electrons (Nsengiyumva et al., Phys. Plasmas 21, 102301 (2014)). The stopband occurs as a direct consequence of the existence of two solutions for the soliton speed which coincides with the warm ion density limit and is restricted to a certain range of cold to warm ion density ratios. In this study, we investigate the effects of the presence of non-thermal electrons on stopbands through adopting a Cairns and kappa distribution for the electrons. Our results reveal that increasing non-thermal electron effects based on a Cairns (kappa) distribution has the effect of reducing (increasing) the width of the stopband. The stopband obtained for two-temperature Boltzmann electrons increases in width for increasing cool electron density and hot to cool electron temperature.

Propagation of arbitrary amplitude dust-ion acoustic waves in the collisional magnetized dusty plasma in the presence of non-thermal electrons

Using the Sagdeev pseudo-potential method, the oblique propagation of dust-ion acoustic solitary waves is studied in a magnetized dusty plasma. By considering non-thermal distribution of electrons, the related pseudo-potential is obtained using the Poisson equation. The behavior of the wave is investigated for some ranges of parameters. It is demonstrated that the increase in ion density, lz, β, and also δ1 can lead to the increases in the width and amplitude of the pseudo-potential, while any increase of a2, the coefficient that describes the first nonlinear term in the G(ϕ), increases the amplitude of the V(ϕ).

W-type ion-acoustic solitary waves in plasma consisting of cold ions and nonthermal electrons

Sagdeev potential approach is used for the study of nonlinear propagation of ion-acoustic waves in plasma consisting of cold positive ions and nonthermal electrons. The nonlinear equation so derived are analysed with the help of Bogoliubov–Mitropolosky method. The profiles of Sagdeev potential solitary waves are evaluated in first-, second- and third- order which are depicted for different values of nonthermal parameter of electrons. It is seen that nonthermal electrons has considerable impact on the shape of ion-acoustic solitary waves in each order. The plasma consisting of cold positive ions and no negative ions can support the formation of compressive as well as W-type solitary waves in second- and third- order for certain value of nonthermal parameter of electrons. The results are new because W-type ion-acoustic solitary wave is found by earlier authors in plasma in presence of negative ions only. The ion-acoustic solitary waves near critical value of nonthermal parameter and arbitrary amplitude solitary waves in presence of nonthermal electrons have also been studied in the paper. Moreover, the solution for ion-acoustic double layers in plasma consisting of nonthermal electrons is obtained. Our results in the paper would be useful to understand the nonlinear wave processes in ionospheric and magnetospheric multicomponent plasma having nonthermal electrons.

Dust ion acoustic solitary structures in presence of nonthermal electrons and isothermal positrons

The Sagdeev potential technique has been employed to study the dust ion acoustic solitary waves and double layers in an unmagnetized collisionless dusty plasma consisting of negatively charged static dust grains, adiabatic warm ions, and isothermally distributed electrons and positrons. A computational scheme has been developed to draw the qualitatively different compositional parameter spaces or solution spaces showing the nature of existence of different solitary structures with respect to any parameter of the present plasma system. The qualitatively distinct solution spaces give the overall scenario regarding the existence of different solitary structures. The present system supports both positive and negative potential double layers. The negative potential double layer always restricts the occurrence of negative potential solitary waves, i.e., any sequence of negative potential solitary waves having monotonically increasing amplitude converges to a negative potential double layer. However, there exists a parameter regime for which the positive potential double layer is unable to restrict the occurrence of positive potential solitary waves. As a result, in this region of the parameter space, there exist solitary waves after the formation of positive potential double layer, i.e., positive potential supersolitons have been observed. But the amplitudes of these supersolitons are bounded. A general theory for the existence of bounded supersolitons has been discussed analytically by imposing the restrictions on the Mach number. For any small value of positron concentration, there is no effect of very hot positrons on the dust ion acoustic solitary structures. The qualitatively different solution spaces are capable of producing new results for the formation of solitary structures.

Electrostatic supersolitons and double layers at the acoustic speed

Supersolitons are characterized by subsidiary extrema on the sides of a typical bipolar electric field signature or by association with a root beyond double layers in the fully nonlinear Sagdeev pseudopotential description. It has been proven that supersolitons may exist in several plasmas having at least three constituent species, but they cannot be found in weakly nonlinear theory. Another recent aspect of pseudopotential theory is that in certain plasma models and parameter regimes solitons and/or double layers can exist at the acoustic speed, having no reductive perturbation counterparts. Importantly, they signal coexistence between solitons having positive and negative polarity, in that one solution can be realized at a time, depending on infinitesimal perturbations from the equilibrium state. Weaving the two strands together, we demonstrate here that one can even find supersolitons and double layers at the acoustic speed, as illustrated using the model of cold positive and negative ions, in the presence of nonthermal electrons following a Cairns distribution. This model has been discussed before, but the existence and properties of supersolitons at the acoustic speed were not established at the time of publication.

Numerical simulation of electromagnetic emissions in the solar wind plasma with non-thermal electron distribution

Dynamics of fundamental and second harmonic electromagnetic emissions are simulated in the solar wind plasma in the presence of non-thermal electron distribution function in which primary Langmuir waves are driven by an electron beam. The electron velocity distribution function is separated into two distributions representing the distribution of the ambient electrons (Maxwellian) and the suprathermal electrons (non-thermal electrons). The effects of the non-thermal electrons on the generation of primary Langmuir waves, emission rates of the fundamental (F) and harmonic waves (H) and their distributions are investigated. The both of the F and H emissions are sensitive to the characterizes of the non-thermal electrons. It is found that in the presence of non-thermal electrons the production of the Langmuir waves decreases and consequently the levels of fundamental and second harmonic waves are reduced. The emission rate of the fundamental transverse waves decreases and its peak moves slightly toward smaller wave-numbers.

Effect of Anisotropic Ion Pressure on Solitary Waves in Magnetized Dusty Plasmas

AbstractThe propagation of linear and nonlinear dust ion acoustic waves (DIAWs) are studied in a collisionless magnetized plasma which consists of warm ions having anisotropic thermal pressure, nonthermal (energetic) electrons and static dust particles of positive and negative charge polarity. The anisotropic ion pressure is defined using double adiabatic Chew‐Golberger‐Low (CGL) theory. In the linear regime, the propagation properties of the two possible modes are investigated via ion pressure anisotropy, dust particle polarity and nonthermality of electrons. Using reductive method Zakharov‐Kuznetsov (ZK) equation is derived for the propagation of two dimensional electrostatic dust ion acoustic solitary waves in dusty plasmas. It is found that both compressive and rarefactive solitons are formed in presence of nonthermal electrons using Cairn's distribution [R.A. Cairns, A.A. Mamun, R. Bingham, R.O. Dendy, R. Bostrom, C.M.C. Nairn and P.K. Shukla, Geophys.Res. Lett. 22, 2709 (1995)] in the system. The ion pressure anisotropy, nonthermality of electrons and charge polarity of the dust particles have significant effects on the amplitude and width of the dust ion acoustic solitary waves in such anisotropic nonthermal magnetized dusty plasmas. The numerical results are also presented for illustration. Our finding is applicable to space dusty plasma regimes having anisotropic ion pressure and nonthermal electrons. (© 2014 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)

Modelling Spectral and Timing Properties of Accreting Black Holes: The Hybrid Hot Flow Paradigm

The general picture that emerged by the end of 1990s from a large set of optical and X-ray, spectral and timing data was that the X-rays are produced in the innermost hot part of the accretion flow, while the optical/infrared (OIR) emission is mainly produced by the irradiated outer thin accretion disc. Recent multiwavelength observations of Galactic black hole transients show that the situation is not so simple. Fast variability in the OIR band, OIR excesses above the thermal emission and a complicated interplay between the X-ray and the OIR light curves imply that the OIR emitting region is much more compact. One of the popular hypotheses is that the jet contributes to the OIR emission and even is responsible for the bulk of the X-rays. However, this scenario is largely ad hoc and is in contradiction with many previously established facts. Alternatively, the hot accretion flow, known to be consistent with the X-ray spectral and timing data, is also a viable candidate to produce the OIR radiation. The hot-flow scenario naturally explains the power-law like OIR spectra, fast OIR variability and its complex relation to the X-rays if the hot flow contains non-thermal electrons (even in energetically negligible quantities), which are required by the presence of the MeV tail in Cyg X-1. The presence of non-thermal electrons also lowers the equilibrium electron temperature in the hot flow model to ≲100 keV, making it more consistent with observations. Here we argue that any viable model should simultaneously explain a large set of spectral and timing data and show that the hybrid (thermal/non-thermal) hot flow model satisfies most of the constraints.

The effects of nonthermal electron distributions on ion-temperature-gradient driven drift-wave instabilities in electron-ion plasma

The effects of nonthermal electron distributions on electrostatic ion-temperature-gradient (ITG) driven drift-wave instabilities in the presence of equilibrium density, temperature, and magnetic field gradients are investigated here. By using Braginskii’s transport equations for ions and Cairns as well as Kappa distribution for electrons, the coupled mode equations are derived. The modified ITG driven modes are derived, and it is found both analytically as well as numerically that the nonthermal distribution of electrons significantly modify the real frequencies as well as the growth rate of the ITG driven drift wave instability. The growth rate of ion-temperature-gradient driven instability is found to be maximum for Cairns, intermediate for Kappa, and minimum for the Maxwellian distributed electron case. The results of present investigation might be helpful to understand several wave phenomena in space and laboratory plasmas in the presence of nonthermal electrons.

Small amplitude ion-acoustic solitary waves in an adiabatic multi-component plasma

Adiabatic multi-ions species containing positive and negative ions in the presence of nonthermal electrons are considered. The properties of small, but finite, ion acoustic waves are investigated taking into account the pressure effect of positive/negative ions in the fluid equations with a polytropic (γ) coefficient ranging from 1 to 3. The reductive perturbation method has been employed to derive the Korteweg-de Vries equation for small amplitude ion-acoustic waves. The effect of ion pressure is found important, particularly for higher values of γ. The results of the present investigation may be applicable to some plasma environments, such as the Earth’s ionosphere region.

Electrostatic solitary structures in presence of non-thermal electrons and a warm electron beam on the auroral field lines

Electrostatic solitary waves (ESWs) have been observed by satellites in the auroral region of the Earth’s magnetosphere. These ESWs are found to be having both positive and negative electrostatic potentials. Using the Sagdeeev psuedo-potential technique, arbitrary amplitude electron-acoustic solitary waves/double layers are studied in an unmagnetized plasma consisting of non-thermally distributed hot electrons, fluid cold electrons, a warm electron beam, and ions. The inertia of the warm electrons, and not the beam speed, is essential for the existence of positive potential solitary structures. Existence domains for positive as well as negative potential electrostatic solitons/double layers are obtained. For the typical auroral region parameters, the electric field amplitude of the negative potential solitons is found to be in the range ∼(3–30) mV/m and ∼(5–80) mV/m for the positive potential solitons. For the negative potential solitons/double layers, the amplitudes are higher when their widths are smaller. On the other hand, the amplitude of the positive potential structures increase with their widths.

On existence conditions of dust-acoustic solitary waves in a plasma with positively charged dust

Dust acoustic (DA) solitary wave existence conditions are investigated for positively charged dust particles in the presence of nonthermal electrons. Once Sagdeev pseudo-potential derived through fluid equations, for large amplitude DA waves, the lower limit on Mach number is calculated analytically using the necessary condition for the solitary waves existence. The double layers conditions provides the upper limit on Mach number. This allowed us to numerically investigate the effect of the temperature, density and nonthermal parameters on the solitary waves’ characteristics. The present study is devoted to a complex plasma subject to ultraviolet radiations such as the one in the lower earth’s ionosphere.

Nonlinear acoustic waves in nonthermal dusty or pair plasmas

Using a Sagdeev pseudopotential formalism where nonlinear structures are stationary in a comoving frame, large dust-acoustic solitary waves and double layers have been studied in plasmas with negative cold dust or heavier ions, in the presence of nonthermal electrons and protons/positrons. The existence domain of negative solitary waves is limited by infinite compression of the negative dust or heavy ion species, that of positive solitary waves by the occurrence of positive double layers. These double layers require a sufficient degree of nonthermality of the hot species. There are parameter ranges where both negative and positive solitary structures can occur; sometimes both of the solitary wave type or sometimes one solitary wave and the other a double layer. Great emphasis is placed on the determination of the existence domains in compositional parameter space, with the help of strong analytical results, before typical Sagdeev pseudopotentials and solitary wave profiles are presented. Subject to simple adjustments, these results apply equally to a conjugate plasma model of positive dust or heavy ions, together with nonthermal electrons and protons/positrons.