Ion-acoustic solitons and double-layers in a plasma consisting of positive and negative ions with non-thermal electrons

In this research paper, the authors have studied the properties of ion-acoustic solitons and double-layers in a plasma consisting of warm positive and negative ions with different concentration of masses, charged states and non-thermal electrons using small amplitude approximation. Reductive perturbation method is used to derive KdV and m-KdV equations. Existence of ion-acoustic solitons and double-layer is explored over a wide range of parameter space. The role of non-thermal electrons characterized by finite β is investigated. It is observed that for a particular value of β, there is a transition from compressive to rarefactive solitons. However, when β is increased beyond a critical value, no double-layers are obtained. The significance of relative ion masses is also investigated.