Suprathermal drift through a warm collisional plasma: evolutional solution

Abstract

Evolutional drift-theory representations are used to consider suprathermal drift of a switched-on electron through a warm collisional plasma. The general suprathermal solution for an arbitrarily time-varying electron is made up of two nontrivial constituents. One of these exists in the interiorR2of an expanding thermal front Г. The other exists in a drifting-extending regionR1enclosed by part of Г, together with a sheet that diverges downstream from the suprathermal electron (outside Г) and terminates tangentially at Г. The solution vanishes identically beyondR1,R2and their boundaries. Two- and three-dimensional closed forms of an exact solution are next extracted inR1for the pulsating electron with complex frequency. Furthermore, two-dimensional near-ultimate state results are asymptotically derived deep withinR2for a real electron frequency and a collisionless plasma. Hyperbolic/hyperboloidal attenuation normally affects space-time dissipation.