EIGENVALUE SOLUTION FOR THE ION-COLLISIONAL EFFECTS ON ION-ACOUSTIC AND ENTROPY WAVES

The linearized ion Fokker-Planck equation is solved as an eigenvalue p roblem under the condition of collisionless electrons in the quasineut ral limit (phi = 0) for ionization-temperature ratios, ZT(e)/T(i) = 2, 4, and 8 for entropy waves and ionization-temperature ratios, ZT(e)/T (i) = 4, 8, 16, 32, 48, 64, and 80 for ion-acoustic waves. The perturb ed ion distribution function for the ion-acoustic and entropy waves is formed from a Legendre polynomial expansion of eigenvectors and can b e used to calculate collisionally dependent macroscopic quantities in the plasma such as gamma (GAMMA = C(p)/C(upsilon)), the ratio of speci fic heats, and the ion thermal conductivity (kappa(i)).