PHYSICS OF PLASMAS 18, 034502 2011

Nonextensive dust-acoustic solitary waves

M. Tribeche and A. Merriche
Plasma Physics Group, Theoretical Physics Laboratory, Faculty of Sciences-Physics, USTHB, Bab-Ezzouar, B.P. 32, El Alia, Algiers 16111, Algeria

Received 20 December 2010; accepted 10 February 2011; published online 3 March 2011 The seminal paper of Mamun et al. Phys. Plasmas 3, 702 1996 is revisited within the theoretical framework of the Tsallis statistical mechanics. The nonextensivity may originate from the correlation or long-range interactions in the dusty plasma. It is found that depending on whether the nonextensive parameter q is positive or negative, the dust-acoustic DA soliton exhibits compression for q 0 and rarefaction for q 0. The lower limit of the Mach number for the existence of DA solitary waves is greater smaller than its Maxwellian counterpart in the case of superextensivity subextensivity . 2011 American Institute of Physics. doi:10.1063/1.3561789 Collective waves in dusty plasmas have attracted a great deal of attention in recent years.1,2 A dusty plasma is a normal electron-ion plasma with an additional highly charged component of small micron or submicron sized extremely massive charged particulates dust grains . Dust and plasma coexist in a wide variety of cosmic and laboratory environments. Such mixtures of electrons, ions, and charged grains distinguish themselves from ordinary plasmas in various ways. Because of the high charge and large mass of the grain particulates compared to those of ions, new time and space scales come into play, giving rise to either new or modied waves and instabilities in the dusty plasmas.38 The most well studied of such modes is the so-called Dust-Acoustic Wave DAW ,3 which arises due to the restoring force provided by the plasma thermal pressure electrons and ions while the inertia is due to the dust mass. In a very interesting and inuential paper,9 Mamun et al. showed that a dusty plasma with inertial dust uid and Boltzmann distributed ions admits only negative solitary potentials associated with nonlinear dust-acoustic waves. To complement and provide new insights into these previously published results, we propose here to extend the analysis of Mamun et al.,9 done under the assumption that the ions are MaxwellBoltzmann distributed, to situations where the ions exhibit nonextensive effects. Let us recall that in recent years, a new statistical approach:10 nonextensive statistics or Tsallis statistics, has attracted much attention. This statistics is believed to be a useful generalization of the conventional BoltzmannGibbs statistics and suitable for the statistical description of longrange interaction systems such as plasma systems.1118 Dustacoustic solitary waves with either Boltzmann distributed ions or nonisothermal ions have been discussed under different situations.1921 Let us consider an unmagnetized dusty plasma having ions and dust grains of density ni and nd, respectively. To model the effects of ion nonextensivity, we refer to the following one-dimensional qdistribution function.22 f i v = Cq 1 q 1 m iv 2 e + 2Ti Ti
1/ q1

where , Ti, and e stand for the electrostatic potential, the ion temperature, and the magnitude of the electron charge, respectively. Note that f i v is the particular distribution that maximizes the Tsallis entropy and therefore conforms to the laws of thermodynamics. The constant of normalization Cq is given by

ni0 Cq = ni0

1 1q 1 1 1q 2 1+q 2

mi 1 q , 2 Ti

for 1

1 . 2

1 1 + q1 2 1 q1

mi q 1 , for q 2 Ti

Here, the parameter q stands for the strength of nonextensivity and the quantity for the standard gamma function. It may be useful to note that for q 1, the q-distribution Eq.
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1 is unnormalizable. In the extensive limiting case q 1 , distribution Eq. 1 reduces to the well known MaxwellBoltzmann velocity distribution. Integrating f i v
2011 American Institute of Physics

18, 034502-1

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M. Tribeche and A. Merriche

Phys. Plasmas 18, 034502 2011

over the velocity space and noting that for q 1, the distribution function Eq. 3 exhibits a thermal cutoff on the maximum value allowed for the velocity of the particles, given by
vmax =

conditions for localized solutions, namely, 0 and d / d 0, at , we obtain the quadrature 1 d 2 d

2

+V

=0

2e 2Ti mi q 1 mi

where the Sagdeev potential23 for our purposes reads as V = M2 1 1 + + 2 M2

1/2

we get
+

f i v dv , ni =
+vmax

for 1 for q
1/q1+1/2

q 1

2 1 1 q1 3q 1

3q1/2 q1

10

f i v dv ,
vmax

= ni0 1 q 1

e Ti

The basic equations for one-dimensional low phase velocity dust-acoustic oscillations can then be expressed in terms of normalized variables as9 Nd + T N dV d =0 X 5

Vd Vd = + Vd X T X
2 1+q/2 q1

In the limiting case q 1, V reduces to the pseudopotential already derived by Mamun et al.9 Equation 10 can be regarded as an energy integral of an oscillating particle of unit mass, with a velocity d / d and position in a potential V . Prior to the numerical integration, it is instructive to discuss the conditions under which Eq. 9 leads to soliton solutions by analyzing the Sagdeev potential Eq. 10 . It is clear from Eq. 10 that V = 0 and dV / d = 0 at = 0. Solitary wave solutions of Eq. 9 exist if i d2V / d 2 =0 0, so that the xed point at the origin is unstable; ii there exists a nonzero m at which V m = 0; and iii V 0 when lies between 0 and m. Condition i for the existence of localized structures requires the Mach number to satisfy M 2 q+1
1/2

11

X2

= Nd 1 q 1

where use has been made of the charge neutrality ni0 = nd0Zd. Nd is the dust particle density normalized by nd0, Vd is the dust uid velocity normalized by the dust-acoustic is the electrostatic wave speed Cd = ZdTi / md 1/2, and potential normalized by Ti / e, where Zd is the number of the charge residing on the dust grains. The time and space variables are in the units of the dust plasma period 1 = md / 4 nd0Zde2 1/2 and the Debye length Dd pd = Ti / 4 Zdnd0e2 1/2, respectively. Note that the Tsallis statistics is believed to be a useful generalization of the conventional BoltzmannGibbs one and suitable for the statistical description of long-range interaction systems such as plasma systems. Nonextensivity may therefore originate from the correlation or long-range interactions in the plasma. To study the time-independent arbitrary amplitude dustacoustic solitary waves, we assume that all the dependent variables in Eqs. 5 7 depend only on a single variable, = X MT where again is normalized by Dd and M = solitary wave speed/ Cs . Now, under the appropriate boundary conditions, viz., 0, Vd 0, and Nd 1 at , Eqs. 5 and 6 can be integrated to give Nd = 1 1 + 2 /M 2
1/2 .

It is clearly seen that the lower limit M min = 2 / q + 1 1/2 is greater than its Maxwellian counterpart q 1 in the case of superextensivity q 1 , whereas M min is smaller than its Maxwellian counterpart in the case of subextensivity q 1 . The upper limit of M, M max, can be found by the 2 condition V c 0, where c = M max / 2 is the extremum value of for which the cold dust density Nd is real. Thus, we have
2 M max + 2 q 1 M max 2 1 1+ 2 3q 1 3q1/2 q1

0. 12

The nature of these solitary waves can be found by expanding the Sagdeev potential Eq. 10 to the third order in a Taylor series in . The critical value of M is that which corresponds to the vanishing of the quadratic term. At this time, if the cubic term is negative, there is a potential well on the negative side, and if the cubic term is positive, there is a potential well on the positive side. Therefore, by expanding V around = 0, the critical value of M, at which the second derivative changes sign, can be found as M cr = 2 / q + 1 1/2 and at this critical value, the cubic term reads as d 3V d 3 =
=0

12 + M 4 q2 2q 3 =q q+1 . 4M 4

13

Substituting for Nd from Eq. 8 into Poissons Eq. 7 and multiplying both sides of the resulting equation by d / d , integrating once, and imposing the appropriate boundary

It turns out the nonextensive dust-acoustic soliton when it exists may exhibit a compressive character for q 0 and a rarefactive character for q 0. For the sake of comparison,

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Nonextensive dust-acoustic solitary waves

Phys. Plasmas 18, 034502 2011

FIG. 1. Sagdeev potential V for different values of the nonextensive parameter q = 0.8 dash-dotted line , 1.2 dotted line , 1.6 dashed line , and 2 solid line , with M = 1.2.

FIG. 2. Sagdeev potential V parameter q = 0.35 solid line , with M = 2.

for different values of the nonextensive 0.3 dashed line , and 0.25 dotted line ,

we have numerically analyzed Eq. 10 for different values of q and the results are displayed in Figs. 1 and 2. Interestingly, one nds that because of ion nonextensivity our plasma model admits rarefactive Fig. 1 as well as compressive Fig. 2 dust-acoustic solitons. It can be seen that as q increases, the potential pulse amplitude increases. To study small but nite amplitude DA solitary waves, we follow the well known reductive perturbation technique.24 We rst introduce the stretched variables = 1/2 X v0T and = 3/2T, where is a smallness expansion parameter, measuring the amplitude of the wave or the strength of nonlinearity, and v0 is the unknown soliton velocity normalized to Cd, to be determined later. Substituting power series expansions of Nd, Vd, and Nd = 1 + Nd1 + Vd = Vd1 + =
1 2 2

1 3

+a with a= 1 2

+b

=0

16

2 q+1

3/2

q1 4

q+1 2

1/2

17 2 1 b= 2 q+1
3/2

Nd2 + . . . 14

In the limiting case q 1, Eq. 16 reduces to the KdV equation already derived by Mamun et al.,9 with a = 1 and b = 1 / 2. The stationary localized solution of Eq. 16 is

Vd2 + . . .
2

+ ...

into Eqs. 5 7 , we can establish a relationship among the rst order quantities as Nd1 = 1 / v2 and Vd1 = 1 / v0 0 where v0 = 2 / q + 1 1/2. Considering the next higher order in , we obtain the following set of equations. Nd1 v0 Nd2 + Vd2 + Nd1 Vd1 = 0 Vd1

Vd1

v0
1

Vd2

q+1 2

+ Vd1

=0
2 1 2

15

Nd2

q1 1 2 4

=0

from which we derive the following Kortewegde Vries KdV equation

FIG. 3. Variation of the coefcient a with the nonextensive parameter q.

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M. Tribeche and A. Merriche

Phys. Plasmas 18, 034502 2011

FIG. 4. Variation of the DA soliton width with the nonextensive parameter q, with U0 = 1.

electron number density is sufciently depleted during the charging of the dust grains, on account of the attachment of the background plasma electrons on the surface of the dust grains. In many laboratory and space dusty plasma situations, most of the background electrons could stick onto the dust grain surface during the charging processes and as a result one might encounter a signicant depletion of the electron number density in the ambient dusty plasma. This scenario is relevant to a number of space dusty plasma systems, for example, planetary rings particularly, Saturns F-ring , and laboratory experiments. It should be noted here that a complete depletion of the electrons is not possible, because the minimum value of the ratio between the electron and ion number densities turns out to be the square root of the electron to ion mass ratio when electron and ion temperatures are approximately equal and the grain surface potential approaches zero. One can then extend our present analysis and include Boltzmann distributed electrons.25
F. Verheest, Waves in Dusty Space Plasmas Kluwer, Dordrecht, 2000 . P. K. Shukla and A. A. Mamun, Introduction to Dusty Plasma Physics IOP, Bristol, 2002 . 3 N. N. Rao, P. K. Shukla, and M. Y. Yu, Planet. Space Sci. 38, 543 1990 . 4 P. K. Shukla and V. P. Silin, Phys. Scr. 45, 508 1992 . 5 F. Melands, Phys. Plasmas 3, 3890 1996 . 6 P. K. Kaw and A. Sen, Phys. Plasmas 5, 3552 1998 . 7 N. N. Rao, Phys. Plasmas 6, 4414 1999 . 8 M. Tribeche, R. Hamdi, and T. H. Zerguini, Phys. Plasmas 7, 4013 2000 . 9 A. A. Mamun, R. A. Cairns, and P. K. Shukla, Phys. Plasmas 3, 702 1996 . 10 C. Tsallis, J. Stat. Phys. 52, 479 1988 . 11 J. A. S. Lima, R. Silva, and J. Santos, Phys. Rev. E 61, 3260 2000 . 12 R. Silva, J. S. Alcaniz, and J. A. S. Lima, Physica A 356, 509 2005 . 13 J. L. Du, Phys. Lett. A 329, 262 2004 . 14 L. Y. Liu and J. L. Du, Physica A 387, 4821 2008 . 15 Z. Liu, L. Liu, and J. Du, Phys. Plasmas 16, 072111 2009 . 16 M. Tribeche, L. Djebarni, and R. Amour, Phys. Plasmas 17, 042114 2010 . 17 R. Amour and M. Tribeche, Phys. Plasmas 17, 063702 2010 . 18 M. Tribeche and L. Djebarni, Phys. Plasmas 17, 124502 2010 . 19 A. A. Mamun and P. K. Shukla, Phys. Lett. A 290, 173 2001 . 20 A. A. Mamun and P. K. Shukla, Phys. Plasmas 9, 1468 2002 . 21 P. K. Shukla and A. A. Mamun, New J. Phys. 5, 17 2003 . 22 R. Silva, A. R. Plastino, and J. A. S. Lima, Phys. Lett. A 249, 401 1998 . 23 R. Z. Sagdeev, in Reviews of Plasma Physics, edited by M. A. Leontovich Consultants Bureau, New York, 1966 , Vol. 4, p. 23. 24 H. Washimi and T. Taniuti, Phys. Rev. Lett. 17, 996 1966 . 25 P. K. Shukla and B. Eliasson, Rev. Mod. Phys. 81, 25 2009 .
2 1

sech2

U0

18

where m = 3U0 / a and = 4b / U0 represent the amplitude and the width of the solitary wave, respectively. Solution Eq. 18 represents a small but nite amplitude stationary solitary wave, provided that q 1. Depending on whether a is positive or negative, Fig. 3 indicates that the DA soliton may exhibit compression for q 0 and rarefaction for q 0 revealing therefore that the fully nonlinear behavior may be preserved to a large extent in the weak nonlinear regime. The dependence of the DA soliton width on the nonextensive parameter q is then traced in Fig. 4. The latter indicates that the DA soliton experiences a spreading as q 1. To conclude, we have extended the analysis of Mamun et al.9 to situations where the ions exhibit nonextensive effects and have thereby shown that under certain conditions, the effect of ion nonextensivity can be quite important. In particular, it may be noted that the DA solitary wave may exhibit either a compression q 0 or a rarefaction q 0 . The lower limit of the Mach number for the existence of DA solitary waves is greater smaller than its Maxwellian counterpart in the case of superextensivity subextensivity . The