Furthering our understanding of electrostatic solitary waves through Cluster multispacecraft observations and theory

Planar electron-acoustic solitary waves and double layers in a two-electron-temperature plasma with nonthermal ions

“…The propagation characteristics of the EA waves have also been studied by Yu and Shukla (1983), Mace and Hellberg (1990, 1993 and Mace et al (1991). Two-electron-temperature plasmas are known to occur both in laboratory experiments (Derfler and Simonen 1969;Henry and Treguier 1972) and in space environments (Dubouloz et al 1991(Dubouloz et al , 1993Pottelette et al 1999;Berthomier et al 2000;Singh and Lakhina 2001;Pickett et al 2008;Kakad et al 2009). The propagation of the EA waves has received a great deal of renewed interest not only because the two-electron-temperature plasma is very common in laboratory experiments and in space but also because of the potential importance of the EA waves in interpreting electrostatic component of the broadband electrostatic noise (BEN) observed in the cusp of the terrestrial magnetosphere (Tokar and Gary 1984;Singh and Lakhina 2001), in the geomagnetic tail (Schriver and Ashour-Abdalla 1989), in auroral region (Dubouloz et al 1991(Dubouloz et al , 1993Pottelette et al 1999), etc.…”

Ion-acoustic solitons in warm magnetoplasmas with super-thermal electrons

“…Usually the amplitudes of pulses in the auroral region are larger (milli volts per meter) having a larger duration of the order of milli seconds 15 . Those observed in the magnetosheath region are of much smaller amplitudes (micro volts per meter) with a very short duration (micro seconds) 1 . Note that the bi-polar structures represented in Fig.4(b) are in the rest frame of the solitons, which can be transformed to the duration of the pulses in the rest frame of the detector (on board the satellite).…”

“…In recent years, many authors have tried to model these ESWs with the help of different physical models [2][3][4][5][6][7] . Most of the observational and theoretical studies have indicated that these ESWs are basically potential structures (compressive and rarefactive) with density structures (enhancement and compression) and weak double layers 1 . Solitons or double layers are plasma sheaths (discontinuities) moving in a plasma, which require competing species of charged particles with different masses (inertia) and charges.…”

“…Electrostatic solitary waves (ESW) or solitons are common occurrences in the near-earth plasmas and are routinely observed in the boundary layers and turbulent regions of the magnetosphere 1 . In recent years, many authors have tried to model these ESWs with the help of different physical models [2][3][4][5][6][7] .…”

Solitary structures with ion and electron thermal anisotropy

“…When there is an inhomogeneity of electrons (or ions) due to the evolution of nonlinear perturbation, it results in the formation of a potential structure at that specific region, and henceforth an electric field is generated which is in fact detected by the spacecraft in the form of a bipolar pulse [2,3,4]. Theoretical and observational studies have indicated that these ESWs are basically potential structures and weak double layers [5].…”