Nonlinear Stability and Instability of Plasma Boundary Layers

Abstract

We investigate the formation of a plasma boundary layer (sheath) by considering the Vlasov-Poisson system on a half-line with the completely absorbing boundary condition. In [53], the solvability of the stationary problem is studied. In this paper, we study the nonlinear stability and instability of these stationary solutions of the Vlasov-Poisson system.