Relativistic quasi-solitons and embedded solitons with circular polarization in cold plasmas Articles uri icon

publication date

  • March 2017

start page

  • 1

end page

  • 19

issue

  • 18(185501)

volume

  • 50

International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)

  • 1751-8113

Electronic International Standard Serial Number (EISSN)

  • 1751-8121

abstract

  • The existence of localized electromagnetic structures is discussed in the framework of the 1-dimensional relativistic Maxwell-fluid model for a cold plasma with immobile ions. New partially localized solutions are found with a finite-difference algorithm designed to locate numerically exact solutions of the Maxwell-fluid system. These solutions are called quasi-solitons and consist of a localized electromagnetic wave trapped in a self-generated plasma density cavity with oscillations at its tails. They are organized in families characterized by the number of nodes p of the vector potential and exist in a continuous range of parameters in the omega -V plane, where V is the velocity of propagation and. is the vector potential angular frequency. A parametric study shows that the familiar fully localized relativistic solitons are special members of the families of partially localized quasi-solitons. Soliton solution branches with p > 0 are therefore parametrically embedded in the continuum of quasi-solitons. On the other hand, geometric arguments and numerical simulations indicate that p = 0 solitons exist only in the limit of either small amplitude or vanishing velocity. Direct numerical simulations of the Maxwell-fluid model indicate that the p > 0 quasi-solitons ( and embedded solitons) are unstable and lead to wake excitation, while p = 0 quasi-solitons appear stable. This helps explain the ubiquitous observation of structures that resemble p = 0 solitons in numerical simulations of laser-plasma interaction.

subjects

  • Biology and Biomedicine

keywords

  • soliton; quasi-soliton; laser-plasma; electromagnetic solitons; solitary waves; laser-pulses; generation; spectrum; systems