Dust-ion-acoustic shock waves in the presence of dust charge fluctuation in non-Maxwellian plasmas with Kappa-distributed electrons

Abstract A three-component plasma composed of nonthermal Kappa-distributed electrons, mobile ions, stationary and dust-fluctuating (spherical) dust particles is considered. By employing reductive perturbation method in a weakly nonlinear limit, the Burger’s equation has been derived and the basic properties of dust ion acoustic shock waves are analyzed. It is observed that for increasing ion-electron temperature ratio, the shock’s amplitude decreases, and vice versa. Moreover, shock steepens for increasing electron-ion equilibrium density ratio. Furthermore, it is observed that the shock potential distribution is directly proportional to the spectral index κ , whereas the shock’s width is inversely proportional to the latter. Thus, the non-Maxwellian nature of the electronic velocity distribution significantly modifies the perturbed potential profile. In the limiting case κ → ∞ , the corresponding Maxwellian results are retrieved. Present work will be useful in understanding the nonlinear propagation of dust-ion-acoustic shock waves (DIASHW) in space plasmas where nonthermal population of electrons exist due to various physical phenomena, and in laboratory (e.g., in a double plasma (DP) device, or in tokamak where runaway electrons may result in a non-Maxwellian plasma).