Modulational instability of relativistic ion-acoustic waves in a plasma with trapped electrons

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Abstract
The association between the modified Korteweg-de Vries solitary wave and the modulationally unstable envelope solitary wave in a weakly relativistic unmagnetized plasma with trapped electrons is discussed. The effect of trapped electrons modifies the nonlinearity of the nonlinear Schrodinger equation and gives rise to the propagation of the modulationally unstable ion-acoustic solitary wave. The amplitude of the envelope solitary wave increases while the number of trapped electrons decreases. The velocity of the solitary wave decreases with increasing ionic temperature and increasing particle velocities. The ion oscillation mode, which satisfies the nonlinear dispersion relation, is also derived. The theory is applied to explain space observations of the solar energetic flows in interplanetary space and of the energetic particle events in the Earth's magnetosphere.