Ion-acoustic solitons do not exist in cylindrical and spherical geometries

We investigate the time evolution of one-dimensional, compressive, ion acoustic solitary waves for planar, cylindrical, and spherical geometries in a plasma of cold fluid ions and Boltzmann electrons. For cylindrical and spherical geometries, we show that inward (outward) going solitary waves cannot be localized (i.e., always have a tail) since the effect of a unipolar velocity perturbation is to shift ions inward (outward) to smaller (larger) radii, thereby increasing (decreasing) the local ion density. That is, there are no quasi-particle soliton states in the cylindrical and spherical cases. These results are confirmed and expanded using a plasma simulation for the cylindrical case. We initialize the system with an inward propagating planar soliton. We find supersonic solitary waves which increase in speed as they near the origin, while the wave amplitude increases as r−1∕2. All solitary waves develop the predicted tail, but for larger amplitudes, the tail is unstable and evolves into an acoustic wave ...