Ion-acoustic envelope solitons in a collisionless unmagnetized electron-positron-ion plasma are studied. The Krylov-Bogoliubov-Mitropolsky perturbative technique is used to obtain the nonlinear Schrödinger equation. The critical wave number for the modulational instability depends upon the concentration of different species and the temperature ratios of electrons and positrons. In the limiting case of zero positron concentration we recover the previous results of electron-ion plasma. It is found that a small concentration of ions in the electron-positron plasmas can change the dynamics of the system significantly. The ions can introduce slow time and long spatial scales in the plasmas. Thus the electron-positron plasmas become richer in linear and nonlinear wave dynamics.

• Received 4 June 2002

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.66.036407