Nonplanar ion-acoustic solitons collision in Xe+–F−–SF6− and Ar+–F−–SF6− plasmas

• The nonplanar solitons collisions are investigated.
• The PLK technique is used to study the solitons collisions.
• The phase shifts of the compressive and rarefactive solitons collisions are studied.
• The physical parameters of two plasma environments (e.g., Xe+–F−–SF6− and Ar+–F−–SF6−) are examined on the phase shifts.
• The present plasma system supports the positive and negative phase shifts.

The solitons collision in nonplanar (cylindrical and spherical) plasmas consisting of positive ions, two different negative ions, and isothermal electrons is studied. For this purpose, the Poincaré–Lighthill–Kuo (PLK) method is used to obtain two-coupled nonplanar Korteweg–de Vries (nKdV) equations. Also, the nonplanar phase shifts are calculated. The physical parameters of two plasma experiments; namely Xe+–F−–SF6− and Ar+–F−–SF6− are used to examine the properties of the localized pulses and their phase shifts after collision. It is found that the present model gives rise to the propagation of positive and negative pulses. The effects of the total negative ions concentration, the density ratio of the second-negative ions, the temperature ratio, and the geometrical effects on the behavior of solitons collisions and their phase shifts are investigated. Furthermore, it is found that the phase shifts in the case of the Ar+–F−–SF6− plasma are much larger than those of the Xe+–F−–SF6− plasma. Also, for fixed plasma parameters, the solitons collision received the largest phase shift in spherical geometry, followed by the cylindrical and planar geometries.