Wave-breaking limits for relativistic electrostatic waves in a one-dimensional warm plasma

作者：Trines R M G M^*; Norreys P A

来源：Physics of Plasmas, 2006, 13(12): 123102.

DOI：10.1063/1.2398927

The propagation of electrostatic plasma waves having relativistic phase speed and amplitude has been studied. The plasma is described as a warm, relativistic, collisionless, nonequilibrium, one-dimensional electron fluid. Wave-breaking limits for the electrostatic field are calculated for nonrelativistic initial plasma temperatures and arbitrary phase velocities, and a correspondence between wave breaking and background particle trapping has been uncovered. Particular care is given to the ultrarelativistic regime (gamma(2)(phi)k(B)T(0)/(m(e)c(2))> 1), since conflicting results for this regime have been published in the literature. It is shown here that the ultrarelativistic wave-breaking limit will reach arbitrarily large values for gamma(phi)->infinity and fixed initial temperature. Previous results claiming that this limit is bounded even in the limit gamma(phi)->infinity are shown to suffer from incorrect application of the relativistic fluid equations and higher, more realistic wave-breaking limits are appropriate.

• 出版日期2006-12