| Abstract : | Quantum plasmas have been a significant area of study for nearly six decades due to their frequent occurrence and potential applications in many astrophysical plasmas, laboratory devices using the compression of matter with laser, x-ray, or ion beams, inertial confinement fusion (ICF) plasmas, quark-gluon plasmas, solid-state plasmas, semiconductor electron-hole plasmas, as well as in nanoplasmonics. The number density of degenerate electrons is so high in dense astrophysical environments that the electron speed and Fermi energy are on scale with the speed of light in a vacuum and the electron mass-energy, respectively. Consequently, the collective behavior of this dense matter is determined by quantum effects. When dissipation effects outweigh dispersion effects in a specific nonlinear medium, shock waves result. The study of the evolution of nonlinear shock waves in degenerate quantum plasmas has attracted the attention of many researchers due to their presence in interstellar compact objects such as neutron stars, white and brown dwarfs, and high-power laser operations. In this paper, the head-on collision of two heavy nucleus acoustic (HNA) shock waves in a quantum plasma made up of relativistic degenerate electrons, light nuclei, and non-degenerate mobile heavy nuclei is presented. Two Kortweg-de Vries-Burgers equations for shock waves are derived using the extended Poincare-Lighthill-Kuo perturbation approach. After the collision, the analytical phase changes of the HNA shock waves have been determined. Due to the dependency of nonlinearity, dispersion, and dissipative terms on the physical factors, such as number density ratio, charge density, magnetic field strength, etc, we have studied the impact of such numerous physical parameters that significantly alter the distinctive characteristics of HNA shock waves. The findings of this study may provide insights into the distinctive characteristics of various nonlinear HNA waves in various astrophysical contexts, particularly in white dwarfs. |
