Stability of oblique modulation of ion-acoustic waves in a multicomponent plasma

Abstract

The stability of oblique modulation of ion-acoustic waves in a collisionless plasma consisting of two cold-ion species with different masses, concentrations, and charge states, and hot isothermal electrons is studied. Using the Krylov–Bogoliubov–Mitropolosky (KBM) perturbation technique, a nonlinear Schrödinger equation governing the slow modulation of the wave amplitude, is derived for the system. It is found that the presence of second-ion species significantly changes the instability domain in the k-φ plane. The effect of charge state, concentration, and mass of second-ion species on the modulational instability is discussed in detail. The predictions of the theory are found to be in good agreement with the experimental observations.