NONRADIATIVE COLLISIONS OF LANGMUIR SOLITONS

Collisions of Langmuir solitons are described in terms of equations of motion for equivalent point particles. The description is valid in th e limit when the eigenfrequencies of bound plasmons are much higher th an the inverse interaction time, and the velocities of the solitons ar e much less than the ion-acoustic velocity. It is shown that the veloc ities of the solitons do not change due to binary collisions but they generally change when more than two solitons collide simultaneously.