Nonlinear electron Landau damping of ion-acoustic solitons

Several authors have treated kinetic effects associated with the ion-acoustic soliton; e.g., Ott and Sudan investigated linear electron Landau damping and Karpman and Lotko have looked at damping due to ion reflection. Here an O’Neil-type frozen wave calculation that includes effects associated with electron orbits in a soliton is presented. This calculation differs from previous ones in that the usual three time scale argument is made: ωpe ≫ωbe ≫γL. The orbit effects included in this ordering become important at the modest amplitude eΦ/Te≳(me/mi).2 Saturation at finite amplitude is predicted.