Nonlinear-Ion-Acoustic-Wave Instability, Threshold, Half Width of Trapped Region and Transition Region

Nonlinear Landau damping of ion acoustic wave (IAW) is one of the most important phenomena in the ionosphere and in space and laboratory plasma as well. The instability growth rate of the IAW with electron drift, the amplitude threshold for exciting the nonlinear effects, the half widths of the trapped region with the trapped electrons are studied experimentally. Under the experimental conditions, it is shown that there is a frequency range of 140--160 kHz, within which the growth rate has the largest value of about 6×10⁴--1.5×10⁵ s^-1. We obtain the transitional region width caused by collisions theoretically and experimentally, for the first time to our knowledge. The experimental results are in good agreement with the theoretical prediction.