We investigate the existence of ion-acoustic shock waves in a five component cometary plasma consisting of positively and negatively charged oxygen ions, kappa described hydrogen ions, hot solar electrons, and slightly colder cometary electrons. The KdVB equation has been derived for the system, and its solution plotted for different kappa values, oxygen ion densities, as well as the temperature ratios for the ions. It is found that the amplitude of the shock wave decreases with increasing kappa values. The strength of the shock profile decreases with increasing temperatures of the positively charged oxygen ions and densities of negatively charged oxygen ions.

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We investigate the existence of compressive and rarefactive solitary waves in a five-component plasma. Positively and negatively multiply charged heavier ions (dust), kappa function described photo-electrons, hot electrons and ions form the five components. The pseudo-potential approach is used to determine the existence of a soliton. We find that the Sagdeev potential as well as the amplitude of the solitary wave for both compressive and rarefactive solitons increases with increasing spectral indices of the kappa distributions describing the cometary species. The magnitude of the amplitude of the solitary wave increases with increasing positively charged ion densities and charge numbers, but decreases with increasing charge numbers of the negative ions for both type of solitons.

We have, in this paper, studied the stability of the ion-acoustic wave in a plasma composed of hydrogen, positively and negatively charged oxygen ions, and electrons, which approximates very well the plasma environment around a comet. Modelling each cometary component (H+, O+, and O−) by a ring distribution, we find that ion-acoustic waves can be generated at frequencies comparable to the hydrogen ion plasma frequency. The dispersion relation has been solved both analytically and numerically. We find that the ratio of the ring speed (u⊥s) to the thermal spread (vts) modifies the dispersion characteristics of the ion-acoustic wave. The contrasting behaviour of the phase velocity of the ion-acoustic wave in the presence of O− ions for u⊥s>vts (and vice versa) can be used to detect the presence of negatively charged oxygen ions and also their thermalization.

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