Shock waves and double layers in electron degenerate dense plasma with viscous ion fluids

The properties of ion-acoustic shock waves and double layers propagating in a viscous degenerate dense plasma (containing inertial viscous ion fluid, non-relativistic and ultra-relativistic degenerate electron fluid, and negatively charged stationary heavy element) is investigated. A new nonlinear equation (viz. Gardner equation with additional dissipative term) is derived by the reductive perturbation method. The properties of the ion-acoustic shock waves and double layers are examined by the analysis of the shock and double layer solutions of this new equation (we would like to call it M-Z equation). It is found that the properties of these shock and double layer structures obtained from this analysis are significantly different from those obtained from the analysis of standard Gardner or Burgers' equation. The implications of our results to dense plasmas in astrophysical objects (e. g., non-rotating white dwarf stars) are briefly discussed. (C) 2014 AIP Publishing LLC.