Electrostatic solitary ion waves in dense electron-positron-ion magnetoplasma

The nonlinear coupled ion-acoustic and ion-cyclotron waves propagating obliquely to the external magnetic field in dense collisionless electron-positron-ion magnetoplasma are investigated using Sagdeev potential method. A semiclassical approach is used. Electrons and positrons are treated as degenerate Fermi gases described by Thomas-Fermi density distribution and ions behave as classical gas. It is found that the presence of degenerate positrons in a dense Thomas-Fermi plasma significantly modifies the structure of solitary waves by restricting the electrostatic potential to a certain maximum value which depends upon the concentration of positrons in the system. It is also noted that only subsonic humplike solitary waves can exist and for a given angle of propagation, the presence of degenerate positrons diminishes the amplitude as well as width of the solitary wave. (C) 2009 American Institute of Physics. [DOI: 10.1063/1.3118590]