  Excitation of nonlinear ion acoustic wave (IAW) by an external electric field
is demonstrated by Vlasov simulation. The frequency calculated by the
dispersion relation with no damping is verified much closer to the resonance
frequency of the small-amplitude nonlinear IAW than that calculated by the
linear dispersion relation. When the wave number $ k\lambda_{De} $ increases,
the linear Landau damping of the fast mode (its phase velocity is greater than
any ion's thermal velocity) increases obviously in the region of $ T_i/T_e <
0.2 $ in which the fast mode is weakly damped mode. As a result, the deviation
between the frequency calculated by the linear dispersion relation and that by
the dispersion relation with no damping becomes larger with $k\lambda_{De}$
increasing. When $k\lambda_{De}$ is not large, such as $k\lambda_{De}=0.1, 0.3,
0.5$, the nonlinear IAW can be excited by the driver with the linear frequency
of the modes. However, when $k\lambda_{De}$ is large, such as
$k\lambda_{De}=0.7$, the linear frequency can not be applied to exciting the
nonlinear IAW, while the frequency calculated by the dispersion relation with
no damping can be applied to exciting the nonlinear IAW.
