Ion-acoustic solitons and double layers in weakly relativistic multicomponent plasma in presence of electron inertia

Ion-acoustic solitons have been theoretically studied from the Korteweg-deVries (K-dV) and modified Korteweg-deVries (MK-dV) equation in a weakly relativistic plasma consisting of electrons, positive ions and negative ions. The effects of electron inertia and streaming of ions on the formation of solitons in the plasma having (H+, Cl-) ions. (H+, SF5-) ions and (Ar+, O-) ions have been discussed critically. At the critical situation when nonlinearity in Korteweg-deVries equation vanishes, double layers have been studied from the combined form of K-dV and MK-dV equations. It has been observed that electron-inertia, negative ion concentration and relativistic effects significantly contribute to the formation of double layers. (author)