Nonplanar Electrostatic Solitary Waves in a Relativistic Degenerate Dense Plasma

By employing the reductive perturbation technique, the propagation of cylindrical and spherical ion acoustic solitary waves is studied in an unmagnetized dense relativistic plasma, consisting of relativistically degenerate electrons and cold fluid ions. A modified Korteweg-de-Vries equation is derived and its numerical solutions have been analyzed to identify the basic features of electrostatic solitary structures that may form in such a degenerate Fermi plasma. Different degrees of relativistic electron degeneracy are discussed and compared. It is found that increasing number density leads to decrease the amplitude the width of the ion acoustic solitary wave in both the cylindrical and spherical geometries. The relevance of the work to the compact astrophysical objects, particularly white dwarfs is pointed out.