Reflection of an ion-acoustic soliton from a planar boundary

The reflection of a planar ion-acoustic soliton from an insulated or a biased metallic planar wall is studied. Numerical solutions of the cold-ion fluid equations, the Boltzmann distribution for electrons, and Poisson's equation show that the incident soliton is partially reflected and partially absorbed by the wall. The reflection is larger for wider solitons and for a more negatively biased wall. The numerical results are in reasonable agreement with the recent experiment of Nishida [Phys. Fluids 27, 2176 (1984)]