Shielding of moving line charges

A charged object moving in plasma can excite plasma waves that inevitably modify its Debye shielding characteristics. When the excited waves propagate sufficiently fast, the shielding can even break down. Here the properties of finite amplitude plasma waves excited by a moving line charge are investigated. It is found that when the speed of the latter is close to but less than the thermal speed of the background plasma electrons, only a localized disturbance in the form of a soliton that moves together with the line charge is excited. That is, the line charge is well shielded even though it is moving at a high speed and has generated a large local electrostatic field. However, for a pair of line charges moving together, such complete shielding behavior could not be found.