Cylindrical and spherical soliton collision of electron-acoustic waves in non-Maxwellian plasma

Generation of quasielastic electron-acoustic (EA) waves head-on collision are investigated in non-planar (cylindrical/spherical) plasma composed of cold electrons fluid, hot electrons obeying nonthermal distribution, and stationary ions. The cylindrical/spherical Korteweg-de Vries (KdV) equations describing two bidirectional EA waves are derived and solved analytically. Numerical investigation have shown that only positive electron-acoustic (EA) structures can propagate and collide. The analytical phase shift {pipe}Δ_A{pipe} due to the non-Maxwellian (nonthermal) electrons is different from the Maxwellian case. Both the hot-to-cold electron number density ratio α and nonthermal parameter β have opposite effect on the phase shift behavior. The phase shift of the spherical EA waves is smaller than the cylindrical case, which indicates that the former is more stable for collision. The relevance of the present study to EA waves propagating in the Earth's auroral zone is highlighted.