Quantifying ionization in hot dense plasmas
Abstract
Ionization is a problematic quantity in that it does not have a well-defined thermodynamic definition, yet it is a key parameter within plasma modelling. One still therefore aims to find a consistent and unambiguous definition for the ionization state. Within this context we present finite-temperature density functional theory calculations of the ionization state of carbon in CH plasmas using two potential definitions: one based on counting the number of continuum electrons, and another based on the optical conductivity. Differences of up to 10\% are observed between the two methods. However, including "Pauli forbidden" transitions in the conductivity reproduces the counting definition, suggesting such transitions are important to evaluate the ionization state.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2309.09612,
title = {Quantifying ionization in hot dense plasmas},
author = {Thomas Gawne and Sam M. Vinko and Justin S. Wark},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2309.09612},
year = {2023}
}
Comments
6 pages; 1 figure