Modulational instability of nonlinear waves in the relativistic plasma with account of the nonlinear Landau damping

Abstract

The modulational instability of the weakly nonlinear longitudinal Langmuir as well as the transverse electromagnetic waves, propagation in the relativistic plasma without the static fields is described. The nonlinear Schrödinger equation taking account of the nonlinear Landau damping for these waves has been derived by means of the relativistic Vlasov and Maxwell equations. The plasma with the weakly relativistic temperature and that with an ultrarelativistic one has been investigated. In the first case, for the electron-proton plasma with the temperature more than 2.3 KeV we found the regional change of the wave numbers for which the soliton of two types, subsonic and supersonic, can exist. The soliton of the transverse waves can exist when the group velocity of the waves is between the thermal velocity of the electron and ion and the length of the linear waves is less than 2πc/ω _pi .

In the second case the regions of the wave numbers, with the solitons of the Langmuir and transverse waves have been determined.

The nonlinear waves in the electron-positron plasma and the waves with the phase velocity, which is about the light one, are also considered in the following paper.