On the dynamics of nonlinear propagation and interaction of the modified KP solitons in multicomponent complex plasmas

Dust-acoustic waves (DAWs) are analyzed in the small amplitude limit in a collisionless unmagnetized dusty plasma whose constituents are inertial dust grains, massless ions expressed by the generalized (r, q) distribution and inertialess Maxwellian electrons using the fluid theory of plasmas. The modified Kadomtsev-Petviashvili (mKP) equation is derived at a critical plasma condition for which the quadratic nonlinearity vanishes. The propagation of single soliton and interaction of two solitons are analyzed for the mKP equation in the context of plasma physics by employing Hirota bilinear formalism. The effects of the flatness parameter rand tail parameter q of the ions on the frequency of the DAWs are studied and the comparison with Maxwellian and kappa distributions is drawn. Using the plasma parameters corresponding to the Saturn's E-ring, the range of electric field amplitude for dust-acoustic solitary waves (DASWs) for different ion distributions is calculated and is shown to agree very well with the Cassini Wideband Receiver (WBR) observations. The interaction time of two DASWs for non-Maxwellian ion distributions is estimated and shown to be fastest for the (r, q) distributed ions. The interesting feature of the interaction between compressive solitons with their rarefactive counterparts is also discussed in detail. (c) 2021 Shanghai Jiaotong University. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Automated summary

This study analyzes dust-acoustic waves (DAWs) in a collisionless unmagnetized dusty plasma using the fluid theory of plasmas. The modified Kadomtsev-Petviashvili (mKP) equation is derived and used to investigate the propagation and interaction of solitary waves. The effects of ion distribution parameters on the frequency of DAWs are studied and compared with Maxwellian and kappa distributions. The calculated electric field amplitudes of dust-acoustic solitary waves (DASWs) for different ion distributions agree well with observations. The interaction time of DASWs for non-Maxwellian ion distributions is estimated and shown to be fastest for the (r, q) distributed ions. The interaction between compressive and rarefactive solitons is also discussed in detail.