Nonlinear electrostatic oscillations in a cold magnetized electron-positron plasma

2017

We study the spatio-temporal evolution of the nonlinear electrostatic oscillations in a cold magnetized electron-positron (e-p) plasma using both analytics and simulations. Using a perturbative method we demonstrate that the nonlinear solutions change significantly when a pure electrostatic mode is excited at the linear level instead of a mixed upper-hybrid and zero-frequency mode that is considered in a recent study. The pure electrostatic oscillations undergo phase mixing nonlinearly. However, the presence of the magnetic field significantly delays the phase-mixing compared to that observed in the corresponding unmagnetized plasma. Using 1D PIC simulations we then analyze the damping of t…