The effect of a warm electron beam on slow electron-acoustic solitons

Abstract

The effects of the inclusion of finite drift speed of a warm electron component on the existence of arbitrary amplitude slow electron-acoustic solitons are investigated in a model with ions and cool, warm, and hot electrons. All plasma species are treated as adiabatic fluids. For fixed densities of the cool, warm, and hot electrons, the admissible Mach number ranges of the supported negative potential solitons are found to widen with increasing warm electron beam speed, up to a maximum value of v dbwo ¼ 0.7. Beyond this maximum value, the soliton Mach number ranges become narrower and vanish completely at v dbwo ¼ 1.084 where a switch to positive polarity solitons occurs. For a fixed value of the drift speed of the warm electrons, the cool electron density value at which the switch to positive polarity soliton occurs is the lowest when there is no streaming of the warm electrons but increases with increasing drift speed.