Modulated whistler wave packets associated with density perturbations

The parametric interaction between large amplitude whistlers and ponderomotively driven quasistationary density perturbations in plasmas is considered. A cubic nonlinear Schrodinger equation is derived and then solved analytically to show the occurrence of modulational instability as well as the existence of bright and dark envelope solitons, which are referred to as whistlerons. Explicit whistleron profiles are presented and the relevance to space and laboratory plasmas is discussed. (C) 2005 American Institute of Physics.