Eur. Phys. J. D 31, 91-100 (2004)
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/e2004-00121-4

Ion-acoustic solitons and double-layers in a plasma consisting of positive and negative ions with non-thermal electrons

¹ Department of Physics, Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar-143005, India
² Department of Physics, Khalsa College, Amritsar-143002, India

Corresponding author: ^a nspst99@yahoo.com

Received: 27 April 2004
Revised: 9 July 2004
Published online: 21 September 2004

Abstract

In this research paper, the authors have studied the properties of ion-acoustic solitons and double-layers in a plasma consisting of warm positive and negative ions with different concentration of masses, charged states and non-thermal electrons using small amplitude approximation. Reductive perturbation method is used to derive KdV and m-KdV equations. Existence of ion-acoustic solitons and double-layer is explored over a wide range of parameter space. The role of non-thermal electrons characterized by finite β is investigated. It is observed that for a particular value of β, there is a transition from compressive to rarefactive solitons. However, when β is increased beyond a critical value, no double-layers are obtained. The significance of relative ion masses is also investigated.