Wakes and precursor soliton excitations by a moving charged object in a plasma

TL;DR

This paper investigates nonlinear ion acoustic wave excitations caused by a moving charged object in plasma, revealing complex solutions like wakes and precursor solitons through numerical analysis beyond weak nonlinearity.

Contribution

It presents a comprehensive numerical study of nonlinear plasma waves induced by a moving charge, extending previous weakly nonlinear models to include large amplitude solutions.

Findings

Identification of wakes, precursor, and pinned solitons in plasma

Solutions applicable to laboratory and space plasma scenarios

Large amplitude generalizations of forced KdV solutions

Abstract

We study the evolution of nonlinear ion acoustic wave excitations due to a moving charged source in a plasma. Our numerical investigations of the full set of cold fluid equations goes beyond the usual weak nonlinearity approximation and shows the existence of a rich variety of solutions including wakes, precursor solitons and pinned solitons that travel with the source velocity. These solutions represent a large amplitude generalization of solutions obtained in the past for the forced Korteweg deVries equation and can find useful applications in a variety of situations in the laboratory and in space wherever there is a large relative velocity between the plasma and a charged object.