Electrostatic Solitary Structures in a Relativistic Degenerate Multispecies Plasma

Abstract

The nonlinear propagation of cylindrical and spherical modified ion-acoustic (mIA) waves in an unmagnetized, collisionless, relativistic, degenerate multispecies plasma has been investigated theoretically. This plasma system is assumed to contain both relativistic degenerate electron and positron fluids, nonrelativistic degenerate positive and negative ions, and positively charged static heavy ions. The restoring force is provided by the degenerate pressures of the electrons and positrons, whereas the inertia is provided by the mass of positive and negative ions. The positively charged static heavy ions participate only in maintaining the quasi-neutrality condition at equilibrium. The nonplanar K-dV and mK-dV equations are derived by using reductive perturbation technique and numerically analyzed to identify the basic features (speed, amplitude, width, etc.) of mIA solitary structures. The basic characteristics of mIA solitary waves are found to be significantly modified by the effects of degenerate pressures of electron, positron, and ion fluids, their number densities, and various charge states of heavy ions. The implications of our results to dense plasmas in astrophysical compact objects (e.g., nonrotating white dwarfs, neutron stars, etc.) are briefly mentioned.