Wave breaking in cold plasma

Abstract

Strongly nonlinear plasma oscillations in a cold plasma are investigated in the wave breaking regime using the two-fluid model. The electrons are described in Lagrangian coordinates; the ions are described by the usual Eulerian coordinates. The model is extended to describe the motion after wave breaking has occurred. Numerical solutions are followed up to and beyond wave breaking for both driven and undriven cases. In a driven cold plasma, the plasma waves are excited from fluctuations by the modulational instability, growing to very large amplitudes, which leads to wave breaking. For the undriven cold plasma, large initial perturbations are assumed, which also lead to wave breaking. Multistreams and the generation of fast electrons are observed for both cases after wave breaking. © 1992 American Institute of Physics.