Phase-mixing of ion plasma modes in pair-ion plasmas

Nonlinear interaction between two electrostatic normal modes of a warm pair-ion plasma, viz., ion plasma mode (Langmuir mode) and ion acoustic mode has been analyzed by employing a perturbation technique. It is shown that a gradual loss of phase coherence in the excited Langmuir wave dynamics (phase-mixing) occurs in such a plasma, leading to wave-breaking at arbitrarily low wave amplitudes. Nonlinear results provide an approximate expression for the phase-mixing time which is found to increase with the increase of the ratio of acoustic frequency to Langmuir frequency. The results of our investigation are expected to be relevant to the laboratory produced paired fullerene-ion plasmas