Journal of Plasma Physics

Table of Contents - 1970 - Volume 4, Issue 03  

Research Article

An exact electrostatic shock solution for a collisionless plasma

A. Smitha1

a1 Department of Mathematics, University of the West Indies, Jamaica

Abstract

An exact solution to the steady-state Vlasov equations and Poisson's equation for a one-dimensional plasma of electrons and protons is obtained by splitting the energy equation into two integral equations for the trapped particle distributions. This solution has the properties that the number densities and electric potential are moiiotonic functions of space and do most of their changing over a distance of the order of the Debye length for electrons. The distributions are everywhere differentiable in phase space and are Maxwellian-like, and in terms of elementary functions. Evidence is given to support stability for restricted shock strengths.

(Received November 13 1969)