Nonextensive dust-acoustic solitary waves

The seminal paper of Mamun et al. [Phys. Plasmas 3, 702 (1996)] is revisited within the theoretical framework of the Tsallis statistical mechanics. The nonextensivity may originate from the correlation or long-range interactions in the dusty plasma. It is found that depending on whether the nonextensive parameter q is positive or negative, the dust-acoustic (DA) soliton exhibits compression for q < 0 and rarefaction for q > 0. The lower limit of the Mach number for the existence of DA solitary waves is greater (smaller) than its Maxwellian counterpart in the case of superextensivity (subextensivity). (C) 2011 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3561789]