Electron acoustic solitary waves are studied in a three-component, unmagnetized plasma composed of hot electrons, fluid cold electrons and ions having finite temperatures. Hot electrons are assumed to have kappa distribution. The Sagdeev pseudo-potential technique is used to study the arbitrary amplitude electron-acoustic solitary waves. It is found that inclusion of cold electron temperature shrinks the existence regime of the solitons, and soliton electric field amplitude decreases with an increase in cold electron temperature. A decrease in spectral index, κ, i.e. an increase in the superthermal component of hot electrons, leads to a decrease in soliton electric field amplitude as well as the soliton velocity range. The soliton solutions do not exist beyond T c /T h > 0.13 for κ = 3.0 and Mach number M = 0.9 for the dayside auroral region parameters.

Obliquely propagating ion-acoustic soliatry waves are examined in a magnetized plasma composed of kappa distributed electrons and fluid ions with finite temperature. The Sagdeev potential approach is used to study the properties of finite amplitude solitary waves. Using a quasi-neutrality condition, it is possible to reduce the set of equations to a single equation (energy integral equation), which describes the evolution of ion-acoustic solitary waves in magnetized plasmas. The temperature of warm ions affects the speed, amplitude, width, and pulse duration of solitons. Both the critical and the upper Mach numbers are increased by an increase in the ion temperature. The ion-acoustic soliton amplitude increases with the increase in superthermality of electrons. For auroral plasma parameters, the model predicts the soliton speed, amplitude, width, and pulse duration, respectively, to be in the range of (28.7–31.8) km/s, (0.18–20.1) mV/m; (590–167) m, and (20.5–5.25) ms, which are in good agreement with Viking observations.

Abstract. Arbitrary amplitude electron acoustic solitons are studied in an unmagnetized plasma having cold electrons and ions, superthermal hot electrons and an electron beam. Using the Sagdeev pseudo potential method, theoretical analysis is carried out by assuming superthermal hot electrons having kappa distribution. The results show that inclusion of an electron beam alters the minimum value of spectral index, κ, of the superthermal electron distribution and Mach number for which electron-acoustic solitons can exist and also changes their width and electric field amplitude. For the auroral region parameters, the maximum electric field amplitudes and soliton widths are found in the range ∼(30-524) mV m −1 and ∼(329-729) m, respectively, for fixed Mach number M = 1.1 and for electron beam speed of (660-1990) km s −1 .

A theoretical investigation is carried out to study the obliquely propagating electron acoustic solitary waves having nonthermal hot electrons, cold and beam electrons, and ions in a magnetized plasma. We have employed reductive perturbation theory to derive the Korteweg-de-Vries-Zakharov-Kuznetsov (KdV-ZK) equation describing the nonlinear evolution of these waves. The two-dimensional plane wave solution of KdV-ZK equation is analyzed to study the effects of nonthermal and beam electrons on the characteristics of the solitons. Theoretical results predict negative potential solitary structures. We emphasize that the inclusion of finite temperature effects reduces the soliton amplitudes and the width of the solitons increases by an increase in the obliquity of the wave propagation. The numerical analysis is presented for the parameters corresponding to the observations of “burst a” event by Viking satellite on the auroral field lines.

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