Cairns-Gurevich equation for soliton in plasma expansion into vaccum

Summary form only given. Plasma expansion and soliton formation in laser created plasma are addressed. Nonlinear acoustic waves in plasmas where the combined effect of trapped and nonthermal electrons are dealt with, in plasma expansion are studied. Using the perturbation method, a modified Korteweg-de Vries equation (mKdV) that describes the ion acoustic waves is derived. The plasma is modeled by a Cairns distribution function for nonthermal electrons combined with Gurevich distribution function for the trapped electrons. It is found that parameters taken into account have significant effects on the properties of nonlinear waves as well as on plasma expansion into vacuum. We point out, that this work has been motivated by space and laboratory plasma observations of plasmas containing energetic particles, combined with trapped particles. Furthermore, this study is of interest in the context of the investigation of mono-energetic ion beams from intense laser interactions with plasmas.