A heating mechanism of ions due to large amplitude coherent ion acoustic wave

Ion heating mechanism in a plasma with a coherent ion acoustic wave is studied experimentally and numerically. Ions are accelerated periodically in the electrostatic potential of the coherent wave and their oscillation energy is converted into the thermal energy of ions through the collision with the neutral atoms in plasma. The Monte Carlo calculation is applied to obtain the ion temperature. The amplitude of the electrostatic potential, the mean number of collisions and the mean life time of ions are treated as parameters in the calculation. The numerical results are compared with the experiments and both of them agree well. It is found that the ion temperature increases as the amplitude of the coherent wave increases and the high energy tail in the distribution function of ions are observed for the case of large wave-amplitude. (author)