We present a model for the rate of temperature relaxation between electrons and ions in plasmas. The model includes self-consistently the effects of particle screening, electron degeneracy and correlations between electrons and ions. We successfully validate the model over a wide range of plasma coupling against molecular-dynamics simulations of classical plasma of like-charged electrons and ions. We present calculations of the relaxation rates in dense hydrogen and show that, while electron-ion correlation effects are indispensable in classical, like-charged plasmas at any density and temperature, quantum diffraction effects prevail over e-i correlation effects in dense hydrogen plasmas.
A weakly ionized plasma under the influence of a strong electric field is considered. Supposing a local Maxwellian distribution for the electron momenta the plasma is described by hydrodynamic equations for the pair distribution functions. These equations are solved and the relaxation field is calculated for an arbitrary field strength. It is found that the relaxation effect becomes lower with increasing strength of the electrical field.
The kappa-distributed fully ionized plasma with collisional interaction is investigated. The Fokker-Planck equation with Rosenbluth potential is employed to describe such a physical system. The results show that the kappa distribution is not a stationary distribution unless the parameter kappa tends to infinity. The general expressions of collisional relaxation rate of multiple-component plasma with kappa distribution are derived and discussed in specific cases in details. For the purpose of visual illustration, we also give those results numerically in figures. All the results show that the p…
A new mechanism for pressure profile relaxations in an edge tokamak plasma is derived from simulations within the two-fluid three-dimensional turbulence code EMEDGE3D. The relaxation is due to diamagnetic coupling in the resistive ballooning/drift wave dynamics: unstable modes experience explosive growth at high pressure gradients after a phase in which they are stabilized by the diamagnetic coupling leading to the onset of a transport barrier. The sheared $E\times B$ flow does not play any significant role. After relaxation the transport barrier forms again and it sets the conditions for a no…
The possibility of formation of quasibound states and ordered structures in dense plasma is investigated. The effective potentials of dense plasma are used. On the basis of these models the condition of the ordered structures formation in the system is obtained. It is shown that in the dense classical plasma the quasibound states form whereas the ordered structures form in the dense semiclassical plasma.
Parker's formulation of isotopological plasma relaxation process in magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) is extended to Hall MHD. The torsion coefficient alpha in the Hall MHD Beltrami condition turns out now to be proportional to the "potential vorticity." The Hall MHD Beltrami condition becomes equivalent to the "potential vorticity" conservation equation in two-dimensional (2D) hydrodynamics if the Hall MHD Lagrange multiplier beta is taken to be proportional to the "potential vorticity" as well. The winding pattern of the magnetic field lines in Hall MHD then appears to evolve in the same way as "po…
A recent study [1] about the scaling with the aspect ratio (i.e. the ratio between the major and minor radius of the torus) of the dominant mode in Single Helical (SH) Reverse Field Pinch (RFP) plasmas has shown, at intermediate aspect ratio, that the dominant toroidal mode number in the helical states can be interpreted as the result of a relaxation process. In this work, the theoretical model is compared and validated with the experimental data obtained in the low aspect ratio RELAX device [2]. [1] R. Paccagnella, Phys. of Plasmas 23 (2016) 092512. [2] S. Masamune et al, J. Phys. Soc. Japan …
We investigate the rates for multielectron recombination within a dense plasma environment in local thermodynamic equilibrium (LTE). We find that these multielectron recombination rates can be high within dense plasmas, and they should be treated in the simulations of the plasmas created by intense radiation, in particular for plasmas created by intense VUV radiation from free-electron-laser (FEL) or for modelling the inertial confinement fusion (ICF) plasmas.
Measurements of the relaxation of a zonal electrostatic potential perturbation in a non-axisymmetric magnetically confined plasma are presented. A sudden perturbation of the plasma equilibrium is induced by the injection of a cryogenic hydrogen pellet in the TJ-II stellarator, which is observed to be followed by a damped oscillation in the electrostatic potential. The waveform of the relaxation is consistent with theoretical calculations of zonal potential relaxation in a non-axisymmetric magnetic geometry. The turbulent transport properties of a magnetic confinement configuration are expected…
A spherical tokamak (ST) with a plasma center column (PCC) can be formed via driven magnetic relaxation of a screw pinch plasma. An ST-PCC could in principle eliminate many problems associated with a material center column, a key weakness of the ST reactor concept. This work summarizes the design space for an ST-PCC in terms of flux amplification, aspect ratio, and elongation, based on the zero-beta Taylor-relaxed analysis of Tang & Boozer [Phys. Plasmas 13, 042514 (2006)]. The paper will discuss (1) equilibrium and stability properties of the ST-PCC, (2) issues for an engineering design, and …
A theory for the ion acoustic wave damping in dense plasmas and warm dense matter, accounting for the Umklapp process, is presented. A higher decay rate compared to the prediction from the Landau damping theory is predicted for high-Z dense plasmas where the electron density ranges from $10^{21}$ to $ 10^{24} \mathrm{cm^{-3}}$ and the electron temperature is moderately higher than the Fermi energy.
Decay times of plasma flows and plasma profiles have been measured after a sudden biasing switch-off in experiments on the CASTOR tokamak. A biased electrode has been used to polarize the edge plasma. The edge plasma potential and flows have been characterized by means of Langmuir and Mach probes, the radiation was measured using an array of bolometers. Potential profiles and poloidal flows can be well fitted by an exponential decay time in the range of 10 - 30 microseconds when the electrode biasing is turn off in the CASTOR tokamak. The radiation shows a slower time scale (about 1 ms), which…
Low frequency longitudinal wave instability in magnetized high correlation dusty plasmas is investigated. The dust charging relaxation is taken into account. It is found that the instablity of wave is determined significantly by the frequency of wave, the dust charging relaxation, the shear viscosity and viscoelastic relaxation time, the coupling parameter of high correlation of dust as well the strength of magnetic field.
Fermi Dirac free electron model is applied to very dense plasmas with medium or low temperatures. While Boltzmann statistics can lead to very high densities of ionized electrons, only at very high temperatures, Fermi Dirac statistics can support the high densities of ionized electrons at medium or low temperatures due to the high degeneracies obtained in this model. Since very dense plasmas may be obtained at low temperatures the corresponding black body radiation with the plasma luminosity will be quite small. On the other hand gravitational effects might be quite large due to the high densit…
Here we discuss the possibility of employment of ultrarelativistic electron and proton bunches for generation of high plasma wakefields in dense plasmas due to the Cherenkov resonance plasma-bunch interaction. We estimate the maximum amplitude of such a wake and minimum system length at which the maximum amplitude can be generated at the given bunch parameters.
In this paper a relaxation theory, proposed several years ago for plasmas where a single dominant mode is present, is revisited. The solutions of the related eigenvalue problem are numerically calculated and discussed. Although these solutions are very rich and can reproduce well the magnetic fields measured in experiments, there is no manner within the theory to determine the dominant helicity, which is a free parameter in the model. To find the preferred helicity in the system, we propose to minimize the distance of the relaxed state from another state which is constructed as a two region ge…
Parker's formulation of isotopological plasma relaxation process toward minimum magnetics energy states in magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) is extended to electron MHD (EMHD). The lower bound on magnetic energy in EMHD is determined by both the magnetic field and the electron vorticity field topologies, and is shown to be reduced further in EMHD by an amount proportional to the sum of total electron-flow kinetic energy and total electron-flow enstrophy. The EMHD Beltrami condition becomes equivalent to the potential vorticity conservation equation in two-dimensional (2D) hydrodynamics, and the torsi…
Nano-plasmas produced, e.g. in clusters after short-pulse laser irradiation, can show collective excitations as derived from the time evolution of fluctuations in thermodynamic equilibrium. Molecular dynamical simulations are performed for various cluster sizes. New data are obtained for the minimum value of the stationary cluster charge. The bi-local auto-correlation function gives the spatial structure of the eigenmodes, for which energy eigenvalues are obtained. Varying the cluster size, starting from a few-particles cluster, the emergence of macroscopic properties like collective excitatio…
A self-consistent determination of the spectral function and the self-energy of electrons in a hot and dense plasma is reported. The self-energy is determined within the approximation of the screened potential. It is shown, that the quasi-particle concept is not an adequate concept for hot and dense plasmas, since the width of the spectral function has to be considered. As an example, the solar core plasma is discussed. An effective quasi-particle picture is introduced and results for the solar core plasma as well as for ICF plasmas are presented.
The relaxation rate of a Maxwellian velocity distribution function that has an initially anisotropic temperature $(T_\parallel \neq T_\perp)$ is an important physical process in space and laboratory plasmas. It is also a canonical example of an energy transport process that can be used to test theory. Here, this rate is evaluated using molecular dynamics simulations of the one-component plasma. Results are compared with the predictions of four kinetic theories; two treating the weakly coupled regime (1) the Landau equation, and (2) the Lenard-Balescu equation, and two that attempt to extend th…
We present a theoretical investigation of the excitation of multiple electrostatic wakefields by the ponderomotive force of a short electromagnetic pulse propagating through a dense plasma. It is found that the inclusion of the quantum statistical pressure and quantum electron tunneling effects can qualitatively change the classical behavior of the wakefield. In addition to the well known plasma oscillation wakefield, with a wavelength of the order of the electron skin depth, which in a dense plasma is of the order of several nanometers, wakefields in dense plasmas with a shorter wavelength ar…
Propagation of right-hand circularly polarized laser into highly magnetized over-dense collisional plasma is analytically studied from basic equations. Highly magnetized plasma with density of 10^23 cm^-3 is efficiently heated from 100 eV to 1 keV within depth of around 20 μ{m} in one nanosecond by Nd:YAG laser with moderate irradiance of around 10^14 Wcm^-2.
The Coulomb log (log Λ) approximation is widely used to approximate electron transport coefficients in dense plasmas. It is a classical approximation to the momentum transport cross section. The accuracy of this approximation for electrical conductivity in dense plasmas is assessed by comparing to fully quantum mechanical calculations for realistic scattering potentials. It is found that the classical approximation is accurate to +/-10% when log Λ > 3, irrespective of the plasma species. The thermodynamic regime (density and temperature) for which log Λ > 3 corresponds to does, however, strong…
We revisit the applications of quasi-linear theory as a paradigmatic model for weak plasma turbulence and the associated bump-on-tail problem. The work, presented here, is built around the idea that large-amplitude or strongly shaped beams do not relax through diffusion only and that there exists an intermediate time scale where the relaxations are convective (ballistic-like). We cast this novel idea in the rigorous form of a self-consistent nonlinear dynamical model, which generalizes the classic equations of the quasi-linear theory to "broad" beams with internal structure. We also present nu…
In the present paper we propose the use of desnity matrix formalism for the calculation of the atomic spectroscopic properties of autoionizing states in dense plasmas, i.e. warm dense matter and strongly coupled plasmas. This is motivated by the importance of taking into account the effect of the electric microfield generated by the plasma charge constituents in the calculation of the atomic populations of autoionizing states. For autoionizing states, electron densities justifying the statistical approach exceed solid density bringing serious doubts to the statistical approach even in dense pl…
A general formalism for the treatment of density fluctuations in Coulomb plasmas is presented and applied to the treatment of temperature relaxation in multi-component quantum plasmas when the separate components (electrons and ions) relax to LTE much faster than the mutual equilibration rate. The underlying theory is based upon the Random Phase Approximation with static local field corrections (LFCs) to account for short-range correlations between the particles. A general formula for the electron-ion equilibration rate, similar to the one given by Daligault and Dimonte, is derived. However a …
The calculation of the optical properties of hot dense plasmas with a model that has self-consistent plasma physics is a grand challenge for high energy density science. Here we exploit a recently developed electronic structure model that uses multiple scattering theory to solve the Kohn-Sham density functional theory equations for dense plasmas. We calculate opacities in this regime, validate the method, and apply it to recent experimental measurements of opacity for Cr, Ni, and Fe. Good agreement is found in the quasicontinuum region for Cr and Ni, while the self-consistent plasma physics of…
We present an investigation for the generation of intense magnetic fields in dense plasmas with an anisotropic electron Fermi-Dirac distribution. For this purpose, we use a new linear dispersion relation for transverse waves in the Wigner-Maxwell dense quantum plasma system. Numerical analysis of the dispersion relation reveals the scaling of the growth rate as a function of the Fermi energy and the temperature anisotropy. The nonlinear saturation level of the magnetic fields is found through fully kinetic simulations, which indicates that the final amplitudes of the magnetic fields are propor…
By combining the linear theory and numerical simulations, we study the response of a radially bounded axisymmetric plasma to relativistic charged particle beams in a wide range of plasma densities. We present analytical expressions for the magnetic field generated in the dense plasma, prove vanishing of the wakefield potential beyond the trajectory of the outermost plasma electron, and follow the wakefield potential change as the plasma density decreases. At high plasma densities, wavefronts of electron density and radial electric field are distorted because of beam charge and current neutrali…
In the present paper we propose to update the standard calculation of Stark line profiles for autoionizing atomic states in dense plasmas, i.e. warm dense matter and strongly coupled plasmas. This is motivated by the importance of taking into account the effect of the electric microfield generated by the plasma charge constituents in the calculation of the atomic populations of autoionizing states which leads to the modification of the calculation of Stark line profiles in the frame of the standard theory. This is due to the properties of the autoionizing atomic states that are far from Boltzm…
Controlled fusion with advanced fuels requires average electron and ion energies above 100 keV (equivalent to 1.1 billion K) in a dense plasma. We have met this requirement and demonstrated electron and ion energies over 100 keV in a compact and inexpensive dense plasma focus device. We have achieved this in plasma "hot spots" or plasmoids that, in our best results, had a density-confinement-time-energy product of 5.0 x1015 keVsec/cm3, a record for any fusion experiment. We measured the electron energies with an X-ray detector instrument that demonstrated conclusively that the hard X-rays were…
The states of asymptotic relaxation of 2-dimensional fluids and plasma present a high degree of regularity and obey to the sinh-Poisson equation. We find that embedding the classical fluid description into a field-theoretical framework, the same equation appears as a manifestation of the self-duality.
This work is to continue the development of the general model, Multi-Average Ion Collisional-Radiative Model (MAICRM), to calculate the plasma spectral properties of hot dense plasmas. In this model, an average ion is used to characterize the average orbital occupations and the total populations of the configurations within a single charge state. The orbital occupations and population of the average ion are obtained by solving two sets of rate equations sequentially and iteratively. The calculated spectra of Xe and Au plasmas under different plasma conditions are in good agreement with the DCA…
We present a new theoretical approach for collisional absorption of laser energy in dense plasmas which accommodates arbitrary frequencies and high intensities of the laser field. We establish a connection between laser absorption by inverse Bremstrahlung and the stopping power. This relation is then applied to include strong correlations beyond the mean field approach. The results show an excellent agreement with molecular dynamics simulations up to very high coupling strength.
A precise calculation that translates shifts of X-ray K-absorption edges to variations of thermodynamic properties allows quantitative characterization of interior thermodynamic properties of warm dense plasmas by X-ray absorption techniques, which provides essential information for inertial confinement fusion and other astrophysical applications. We show that this interpretation can be achieved through an improved first-principles method. Our calculation shows that the shift of K-edges exhibits selective sensitivity to thermal parameters and thus would be a suitable temperature index to warm …
The dependence of the real and imaginary parts of the refractive index on the dielectric capacity was obtained for different values of the nonideality parameter, by the help of an ion-ion psevdopotential of fully ionized dense high-temperature plasma, taking into account local fields, quantum and collective effects.
In this paper, electromagnetic emissions produced by a beam-plasma system are investigated using particle-in-cell simulations for the particular case when the typical transverse size of both 100 keV electron beam and produced plasma channel is comparable to the radiation wavelength. The interest in this regime of beam-plasma interaction is associated with highly efficient generation of electromagnetic waves near the plasma frequency harmonics that has been recently observed in laboratory experiments on the GOL-3 mirror trap. It has been found that the radiation power only from the vicinity of …
The quantum diffraction and symmetry effects on the entanglement fidelity (EF) of different elastic electron-electron, ion-ion and electron-ion interactions are investigated in non-ideal dense plasma. The partial wave analysis and an effective screened interaction potential including quantum mechanical diffraction and symmetry effects are employed to obtain the EF in a non-ideal dense plasma. We show that collision energy and temperatures of electron and ion have a destroying role in the entanglement. In fact, by decreasing the temperature of any kind of particles, the quantum effects become d…
The screening of a test charge by partially degenerate non-ideal free electrons at conditions related to warm dense matter and dense plasmas is investigated using linear response theory and the local field correction based on ab inito Quantum Monte-Carlo simulations data. The analysis of the obtained results is performed by comparing to the random phase approximation and the Singwi-Tosi-Land-Sjölander approximation. The applicability of the long-wavelength approximation for the description of screening is investigated. The impact of electronic exchange-correlations effects on structural proper…
Orbital-free molecular dynamics simulations are used to benchmark two popular models for hot dense plasmas: the one component plasma (OCP) and the Yukawa model. A unified concept emerges where an effective OCP (eOCP) is constructed from the short-range structure of the plasma. An unambiguous ionization and the screening length can be defined and used for a Yukawa system, which reproduces the long range structure with finite compressibility. Similarly, the dispersion relation of longitudinal waves is consistent with the screened model at vanishing wavenumber but merges with the OCP at high wave…
An orbit following code is developed to calculate ion beam trajectories in magnetized plasmas. The equation of motion (the Newton's equation) is solved including the Lorentz force term and Coulomb collisional relaxation term. Furthermore, a new algorithm is introduced by applying perturbation method regarding the collision term as a small term. The reduction of computation time is suggested.
The dense plasma focus is a plasma discharge powered by a capacitor bank. Standard diagnostics include measurement of the time derivative of the current through and the voltage across its connections with the capacitor bank. Interpretation of this diagnostic data often involves some assumptions regarding the representation of the dense plasma focus as a time varying inductance. One of the characteristic features of the current derivative waveform is a relatively sharp dip and an associated sharp voltage spike. This has often been interpreted as a result of a rapid rise in the time varying indu…
An extended first-principles molecular dynamics (FPMD) method based on Kohn-Sham scheme is proposed to elevate the temperature limit of the FPMD method in the calculation of dense plasmas. The extended method treats the wave functions of high energy electrons as plane waves analytically, and thus expands the application of the FPMD method to the region of hot dense plasmas without suffering from the formidable computational costs. In addition, the extended method inherits the high accuracy of the Kohn-Sham scheme and keeps the information of elec- tronic structures. This gives an edge to the e…
Collisional relaxation of Coulomb systems is studied in the strongly coupled regime. We use an optical pump-probe approach to manipulate and monitor the dynamics of ions in an ultracold neutral plasma, which allows direct measurement of relaxation rates in a regime where common Landau-Spitzer theory breaks down. Numerical simulations confirm the experimental results and display non-Markovian dynamics at early times.
Results of experimental investigation of the ECR discharge in a single coil magnetic field as an alternative to RF and helicon discharges for wide-aperture dense plasma fluxes production are presented. A possibility of obtaining wide-aperture high density hydrogen plasma fluxes with homogenous transverse distribution was demonstrated in such a system. The prospects of using this system for obtaining high current ion beams are discussed.
In simulations of a 12.5PW laser (focused intensity I = 4x10^23W/cm^2) striking a solid aluminium target 10% of the laser energy is converted to gamma-rays. A dense electron-positron plasma is generated with a maximum density of 10^26/m^3; seven orders of magnitude denser than pure e-e+ plasmas generated with 1PW lasers. When the laser power is increased to 320PW (I = 10^25W/cm^2) 40% of the laser energy is converted to gamma-ray photons and 10% to electron-positron pairs. In both cases there is strong feedback between the QED emission processes and the plasma physics; the defining feature of …
The properties of a bound electron system immersed in a plasma environment are strongly modified by the surrounding plasma. The modification of a basic quantity, the ionization energy, is described by the electronic self-energy and by dynamical screening within the framework of the quantum statistical theory. Introducing the ionic dynamical structure factor as the indicator for the ionic micro-field, we demonstrate that ionic correlations and fluctuations play a critical role in determining the ionization potential depression. This is in particular true for mixtures of different ions with larg…
The charge states of ions in dense plasmas fluctuate due to collisional ionization and recombination. Here we show how, by modifying the ion interaction potential, these fluctuations can mediate energy exchange between the plasma electrons and ions. Moreover, we develop a theory for this novel electron-ion energy transfer mechanism. Calculations using a random walk approach for the fluctuations suggest that the energy exchange rate from charge state fluctuations could be comparable to direct electron-ion collisions. This mechanism is, however, predicted to exhibit a complex dependence on the t…
A new model for the electrical conductivity of dense plasmas with a mixture of ion species, containing no adjustable parameters, is presented. The model takes the temperature, mass density and relative abundances of the species as input. It takes into account partial ionization, ionic structure, and core-valence orthogonality, and uses quantum mechanical calculations of cross sections. Comparison to an existing high fidelity but computationally expensive method reveals good agreement. The new model is computationally efficient and can reach high temperatures. A new mixing rule is also presente…
We validate the application of our recent orbital-free density functional theory (DFT) approach, [Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 155006 (2014)], for the calculation of ionic and electronic transport properties of dense plasmas. To this end, we calculate the self-diffusion coefficient, the viscosity coefficient, the electrical and thermal conductivities, and the reflectivity coefficient of hydrogen and aluminum plasmas. Very good agreement is found with orbital-based Kohn-Sham DFT calculations at lower temperatures. Because the method does not scale with temperature, we can produce results at much highe…
In this paper, by comparing the time scales associated with the velocity relaxation and correlation time of the random force due to dust charge fluctuations, memory effects in the velocity relaxation of an isolated dust particle exposed to the random force due to dust charge fluctuations are considered, and the velocity relaxation process of the dust particle is considered as a non-Markovian stochastic process. Considering memory effects in the velocity relaxation process of the dust particle yields a retarded friction force, which is introduced by a memory kernel in the fractional Langevin eq…
Long-pulse operation of a self-sustained fusion reactor using toroidal magnetic containment requires control over the content of alpha particles produced by D-T fusion reactions. On the one hand, MeV-class alpha particles must stay confined to heat the plasma. On the other hand, decelerated helium ash must be expelled before diluting the fusion fuel. Our kinetic-magnetohydrodynamic hybrid simulations of a large tokamak plasma confirm the existence of a parameter window where such energy-selective confinement can be accomplished by exploiting internal relaxation events known as `sawtooth crashe…
