Nonlinear ion-acoustic solitary waves in electronegative plasmas with electrons featuring Tsallis distribution

Weakly nonlinear ion-acoustic (IA) solitary waves, which accompany electronegative plasmas composed of positive ions, negative ions, and nonextensive electrons are investigated. Allowing for electrons departure from Boltzmann's distribution is shown to bear considerable new features of the IA soliton characteristics. Three different types of electronegative plasmas inspired from the experimental studies of Ichiki etal. [Phys. Plasmas 8,4275 (2001)] are discussed, and the dependence of IA solitons basic characteristics on physical parameters is also investigated. It is found that for certain values of the negative-to-positive ion density ratio, v, the positive-to-negative ion mass ratio, Q, and the nonextensive parameter, q, the plasma system supports rarefactive solitons. (C) 2012 American Institute of Physics. [doi: 10.1063/1.3684232]