A Lagrangian description for the dust acoustic wave (DAW) breaking in a strongly coupled dusty plasma with streaming ions is presented. For our purposes, we have used the dust continuity and dust momentum equations, together with a non-Boltzmann ion density distribution in the quasi-neutrality approximation. The fully nonlinear equations for the non-stationary, nondispersive DAW are solved by introducing a Lagrangian approach. Exact analytical solutions for the evolution of the dust number density and the dust fluid velocity are presented. The relevance of our investigations to recent observations of the DAW steepening/breaking is highlighted. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
