Asymptotic and numerical study to the damped Schamel equation

Analytical and numerical solutions of the damped Schamel equation, describing the dynamics of ion-acoustic waves in magnetized plasma, are presented. A small parameter is introduced in the equation before the dissipative term, ensuring that in its absence the solution reduces to a solitary wave (soliton). The asymptotic method employed for solving the equation is a variant of the Krylov-Bogolyubov-Mitropolsky multiple-scale technique. In the first-order approximation, the solution is described by a traveling solitary wave with slowly varying parameters. The second-order approximation yields the evolution laws for the soliton’s amplitude and phase as functions of «slow» time. Additionally, exact integral conservation laws (mass and energy of the wave field), derived directly from the original damped Schamel equation, are utilized. These integrals allow estimating the soliton’s radiative losses, particularly the mass of the so-called tail formed behind the soliton due to dissipation. Direct numerical solutions of the original equation, obtained via a pseudospectral method, confirm the asymptotic laws governing the soliton’s amplitude decay caused by dissipation. Another limiting case – strong dissipation (dominant over nonlinearity and dispersion), is also investigated, demonstrating that the soliton decays as a linear impulse, which is validated numerically.