English

Dynamic Screening in Thermonuclear Reactions

Astrophysics 2008-11-26 v1 Plasma Physics

Abstract

It has recently been argued that there are no dynamic screening corrections to Salpeter's enhancement factor in thermonuclear reactions, in the weak-screening limit. The arguments used were: 1) The Gibbs probability distribution is factorable into two parts, one of which, exp(βeiej/rij)exp(-\beta \sum e_{i}e_{j}/r_{ij}) (β=1/kBT\beta=1/k_{B}T), is independent of velocity space; and 2) The enhancement factor is w=1+β2e2Z1Z2<ϕ2>w=1+\beta^{2}e^{2}Z_{1}Z_{2}< \phi^{2} > with <ϕ2>k=<E2>k/k2{< \phi^{2} >}_{k}={< E^{2} >}_{k}/k^{2} and <E2>k/(8π)=(T/2)[1ϵ1(0,k)]{< E^{2} >}_{k}/(8\pi)=(T/2)[1-\epsilon^{-1} (0,k)]. We show that both of these arguments are incorrect.

Cite

@article{arxiv.astro-ph/9908218,
  title  = {Dynamic Screening in Thermonuclear Reactions},
  author = {Merav Opher and Reuven Opher},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/9908218},
  year   = {2008}
}

Comments

Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal