Weakly nonlinear ion sound waves in gravitational systems
Permanent link
https://hdl.handle.net/10037/22647Date
2020-04-27Type
Journal articleTidsskriftartikkel
Peer reviewed
Abstract
Ion sound waves are studied in a plasma subject to gravitational field giving rise to vertically inhomogeneous steady-state plasma conditions. Such systems are interesting by exhibiting a wave growth that is a result of energy flux conservation for pulses propagating in an inhomogeneous system. The increase of the amplitude of a pulse as it propagates along the density gradient in the direction of decreasing density gives rise to an enhanced interaction between waves and plasma particles that can be modeled by a modified Korteweg–de Vries equation. Analytical results are compared with numerical particle-in-cell simulations of the problem. Our code assumes isothermally Boltzmann distributed electrons resulting in a nonlinear Poisson equation. The ion component is treated as a collection of individual particles interacting through collective electric fields. Deviations from quasineutrality are allowed for.
Publisher
American Physical SocietyCitation
Guio P, Pécseli H. Weakly nonlinear ion sound waves in gravitational systems. Physical review. E. 2020;101(4)Metadata
Show full item recordCollections
©2020 American Physical Society