Interaction Between Two Electromagnetic Solitary Waves in A Plasma

From numerical solutions of two colliding electromagnetic solitary waves, it is shown that their shapes are modified, and a trailing wake of plasma oscillations is produced by the collision. They therefore cannot be classified as solitons. For sufficiently large relative velocities, however, it is shown that the modifications to the vector and scalar potentials, as well as to the wake due to the collision, are small.