The head-on collision of two concentric cylindrical, ion acoustic solitary waves traveling in opposite directions is considered by extending the Poincaré-Lighthill-Kuo method to the cylindrical geometry. The results show that the phase shifts of the solitary waves due to the collision are proportional to ${\mathit{r}}^{\mathrm{-}1/3}$ and depend on their initial positions, where r is the radius measured from the center of the disturbances. © 1996 The American Physical Society.

• Received 13 April 1995

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.53.2988