Ion-acoustic solitary waves and their multi-dimensional instability in a magnetized degenerate plasma

A rigorous theoretical investigation has been made on Zakharov-Kuznetsov (ZK) equation of ion-acoustic (IA) solitary waves (SWs) and their multi-dimensional instability in a magnetized degenerate plasma which consists of inertialess electrons, inertial ions, negatively, and positively charged stationary heavy ions. The ZK equation is derived by the reductive perturbation method, and multi-dimensional instability of these solitary structures is also studied by the small-k (long wave-length plane wave) perturbation expansion technique. The effects of the external magnetic field are found to significantly modify the basic properties of small but finite-amplitude IA SWs. The external magnetic field and the propagation directions of both the nonlinear waves and their perturbation modes are found to play a very important role in changing the instability criterion and the growth rate of the unstable IA SWs. The basic features (viz., amplitude, width, instability, etc.) and the underlying physics of the IA SWs, which are relevant to space and laboratory plasma situations, are briefly discussed. (C) 2012 American Institute of Physics. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4757218]