Wave-breaking phenomena in a relativistic magnetized plasma
Chandan Maity, Anwesa Sarkar, Padma Kant Shukla, and Nikhil Chakrabarti
Accepted
We study the wave breaking phenomenon of relativistic upper-hybrid (UH) oscillations in a cold magnetoplasma. For our purposes, we use the electron continuity and relativistic electron momentum equations, together with Maxwell's equations, as well as introduce Lagrangian coordinates to obtain an exact non-stationary solution of the governing nonlinear equations. It is found that bursts in the electron density appear in a finite time as a result of relativistic electron mass variations in the UH electric field, indicating a phase mixing/breaking of relativistic UH oscillations. We highlight the relevance of our investigation of the UH wave phase mixing/UH wave breaking process to electron energization and plasma particle heating.