Note on rarefactive and compressive ion-acoustic solitons in a plasma containing two ion species

In a recent article the conditions for the existence of solitons in a plasma containing two ion species were analyzed within the framework of a fully nonlinear treatment. In particular, an upper limit for the critical collective Mach number (above which rarefactive solitons cease to exist) was obtained from the requirement that a charge neutral point in the rarefactive regime must be formed before the electron density, ne, experiences its “lid,” i.e., where ne→0. Although this is a necessary condition it is not sufficient. In the present work a sufficient condition is derived by requiring that a rarefactive equilibrium point be reached before the limit is imposed by either the electron lid or the infinite compression of the second ion species. This requirement, along with the usual necessary condition for soliton formation, provides the parameter space window for the existence of rarefactive solitons. The analysis has also been generalized to include ions of finite mass of various charge for both the rarefactive and compressive cases.