Properties Of Ion-acoustic Waves Research Articles

Modulational instability of ion-acoustic-waves in two electron temperature plasmas

The envelope properties of ion-acoustic waves in a two-electron-temperature plasma are studied. The nonlinear Schrodinger equation describing the envelope of these waves is obtained from the plasma fluid equations by employing the Krylov-Bogoliubov-Mitropolsky perturbation method. It is shown that the ion-acoustic waves can be modulationally unstable or stable depending on the ratios of the densities and the temperatures of the hot and the cold electron components. Even a small fraction of the cold electron component can drastically affect the stability of the system.

Investigation of ion acoustic waves in collisionless plasmas

The Green's functions for the linearized ion Vlasov equation with a given boundary value are derived. The propagation properties of ion acoustic waves are calculated by performing convolution integrals over the Green's functions. For Te/Ti less than about 3 it is concluded that the collective interaction is very weak and that the propagation properties are determined almost completely by freely streaming ions. The wave damping, being due to phase mixing, is determined by the width of the perturbed distribution function rather than by the slope of the undisturbed distribution function at the phase velocity as concluded from normal mode calculations.