Reflection of an ion-acoustic soliton by plasma inhomogeneities

The coupled equations governing oppositely traveling, weakly nonlinear and weakly dispersive ion-acoustic waves in a weakly inhomogeneous plasma are derived. From these equations, the reflected wave due to an ion-acoustic soliton propagating in a weakly inhomogeneous plasma is obtained. It is shown that this reflected wave is small compared with both the trailing shelf and the soliton amplitude decrease due to energy transfer to the shelf.