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Persistent URL http://purl.org/net/epubs/work/36956
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Record Id 36956
Title Wave-breaking limits for relativistic electrostatic waves in a one-dimensional warm plasma
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Abstract The propagation of electrostatic plasma waves having relativistic phase speed and amplitude has been studied. The plasma is described as a warm, relativistic, collisionless, nonequilibrium, one-dimensional electron fluid. Wave-breaking limits for the electrostatic field are calculated for nonrelativistic initial plasma temperatures and arbitrary phase velocities, and a correspondence between wave breaking and background particle trapping has been uncovered. Particular care is given to the ultrarelativistic regime (gamma(2)(phi)k(B)T(0)/(m(e)c(2))> 1), since conflicting results for this regime have been published in the literature. It is shown here that the ultrarelativistic wave-breaking limit will reach arbitrarily large values for gamma(phi)->infinity and fixed initial temperature. Previous results claiming that this limit is bounded even in the limit gamma(phi)->infinity are shown to suffer from incorrect application of the relativistic fluid equations and higher, more realistic wave-breaking limits are appropriate. (c) 2006 American Institute of Physics.
Organisation CCLRC , CLF , CLF-HPL
Keywords CLF 2006-2007
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Language English (EN)
Type Details URI(s) Local file(s) Year
Journal Article Phys Plasmas 13, no. 12 (2006): 123102. doi:10.1063/1.2398927 2006