An investigation of the propagation of ion acoustic waves in nonthermal plasmas in the presence of trapped electrons has been undertaken. This has been motivated by space and laboratory plasma observations of plasmas containing energetic particles, resulting in long-tailed distributions, in combination with trapped particles, whereby some of the plasma particles are confined to a finite region of phase space. An unmagnetized collisionless electron-ion plasma is considered, featuring a non-Maxwellian-trapped electron distribution, which is modelled by a kappa distribution function combined with a Schamel distribution. The effect of particle trapping has been considered, resulting in an expression for the electron density. Reductive perturbation theory has been used to construct a KdV-like Schamel equation, and examine its behaviour. A solitary wave solution is presented and its dynamics discussed. The chief modification due to the presence of particle trapping is stronger nonlinearity, while enhanced superthermality affects the amplitude and width of solitons with a fixed value of incremental soliton speed adversely.

The basic features of obliquely propagating dustacoustic solitary waves (DASWs), and their multidimensional instability in a magnetized dusty plasma containing negatively charged dust, two-temperature electrons, and trapped ions, have been theoretically investigated by the reductive-perturbation method and small-k perturbation-expansion technique. The combined effects of external magnetic field (obliqueness), two-electron temperature, and trapped-ion distribution, which are found to significantly modify the basic properties (amplitude and width) of small but finite-amplitude DASWs, are explicitly examined. It is also found that the instability criterion and the growth rate are significantly modified by the external magnetic field and the propagation directions of both the nonlinear waves and their perturbation modes. The implications of our results in space plasmas are briefly discussed. Index Terms-Dust-acoustic solitary waves (DASWs), multidimensional instability, trapped ions, two-temperature electrons.

The nonlinear features of dust-acoustic (DA) waves in a strongly coupled unmagnetized dusty plasma (containing electrons following Boltzmann distribution, ions obeying vortexlike distribution, and negatively charged mobile dust) are investigated by using reductive perturbation method. It is observed that the nonlinear propagation of the DA waves gives rise to solitary structures when the strong correlation is absent and gives rise to shock structures when the strong correlation among the dust grains is present. The condition for the formation of oscillatory and monotonic shock structures is also found. The implications of our result in space and laboratory dusty plasmas are discussed.

The basic features of obliquely propagating electron-acoustic (EA) solitary waves and their multidimensional instability in a magnetized plasma containing cold electrons, hot electrons obeying a vortexlike distribution, and stationary ions have been theoretically investigated by the reductive perturbation method and small-k perturbation expansion technique. The combined effects of external magnetic field (obliqueness) and trapped electron distribution, which are found to significantly modify the basic properties (amplitude and width) of small but finite-amplitude EA solitary waves, are explicitly examined. It is also found that the instability criterion and the growth rate are significantly modified by the external magnetic field and the propagation directions of both the nonlinear waves and their perturbation modes. The implications of our results in space plasmas are briefly discussed.

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