Electron-acoustic plasma waves: oblique modulation and envelope solitons.

Theoretical and numerical studies are presented of the amplitude modulation of electron-acoustic waves (EAWs) propagating in space plasmas whose constituents are inertial cold electrons, Boltzmann distributed hot electrons, and stationary ions. Perturbations oblique to the carrier EAW propagation direction have been considered. The stability analysis, based on a nonlinear Schrödinger equation, reveals that the EAW may become unstable; the stability criteria depend on the angle theta between the modulation and propagation directions. Different types of localized EA excitations are shown to exist.