Modulational instability of ion-acoustic soliton in a multicomponent plasma

An experiment has been performed in a multi-dipole double plasma device. The inner diameter is 80 cm and its total length is 150 cm. The chamber is evacuated down to 8x10/sup -7/ Torr. Argon and sulfur hexafluoride are introduced independently into the chamber under continuous pumping. The pressure of Ar is 2 x 10/sup -4/ Torr and the partial pressure of SF/sub 6/ is changed 0 to 3 x 10/sup -8/ Torr. The plasma includes several species of positive and negative ions, SF/sub 6//sup -/. However, since ions of lighter mass dominate the ion-acoustic wave, the plasma is considered to be effectively composed of AR/sup +/, F/sup -/ and electrons. Initial modulated sinusoidal signals, the absolute amplitude 1.5 to 0.1 V, the percentage modulation 0 to 100%, the duration of the train 200μsec, the carrier frequency f/sub o/ = w/2π = 200 to 300 kHz and the modulation frequency Ω/2π=15 to 20 kHz, are applied to the driver plasma. The detected signals increase the percentage modulation with the distance from the separation grid, and the growth rate is proportional to the amplitude of applied signal. The measurement of the power spectra show that the frequency of the carrier wave shifts to the lower side-bands (f/sub o/ -Ω/2π and f/sub o/ -2Ω/2π) as development of the amplitude modulation instability. These results can be explained by the analysis of the N-S equation