Effect of ion drift on arbitrary‐amplitude ion‐acoustic solitary waves

The properties of arbitrary‐amplitude solitary waves in a plasma consisting of drifting ions and nondrifting electrons are investigated. The conditions for the existence of solitary‐wave solutions are determined. It is shown that electron inertia has the significant effect of restricting the regime of solitary waves to ion drift velocities that are less than the electron thermal speed. Because of this restriction relativistic effects are small.