An ubiquitous property of plasmas is the so-called Debye shielding of the electrostatic potential. Important aspects of Debye screening concern, in particular, the investigation of non-linear charge screening effects taking place in strongly-coupled plasmas, that imply a reduction of the effective charge characterizing the Debye-Hückel potential. These effects are particularly relevant in dusty plasmas which are characterized by high-Z particles. The investigation of the effective interactions of these particles has attracted interest in recent years especially for numerical simulations. In this work we intend to analyze the consistency of the traditional mathematical model for the Debye screening. In particular, we intend to prove that the 3D Poisson equation involved in the DH model does not admit strong solutions. For this purpose a modified model is proposed which takes into account the effect of local plasma sheath (i.e., the local domain near test particles where the plasma must be considered discrete). Basic consequences of the model are discussed, which concern the asymptotic properties of the solutions determined both for weakly and strongly coupled plasmas. As an application the charge screening effect in strongly coupled plasmas is investigated and an explicit expression of the effective charge for the asymptotic DH potential is determined.
The classical Debye-Hückel screening effect of the electrostatic field generated by isolated charged particles immersed in a plasma is reviewed. The validity of the underlying mathematical model, and particularly of the weak-field approximation, are analyzed. It is shown that the presence of the plasma sheath around test particles and the resulting effect of charge screening are essential for the description of plasmas which are strongly coupled.
The effect of plasma screening on the electronic and vibrational properties of the H2+ molecular ion was analyzed within the Born-Oppenheimer approximation. When a molecule is embedded in a plasma, the plasma screens the electrostatic interactions. This screening is accounted for in the Schrödinger equation by replacing the Coulomb potentials with Yukawa potentials that incorporate the Debye length as a screening parameter. Variational expansions in confocal elliptical coordinates were used to calculate energies of the 1ssg and the 2psu states over a range of Debye lengths and bond distances. …
We show how optical spectra in dense plasmas are determined by the shift of energy levels as well as the broadening owing to collisions with the plasma particles. In lowest approximation, the interaction with the plasma particles is described by the RPA dielectric function, leading to the Debye shift of the continuum edge. The bound states remain nearly un-shifted, their broadening is calculated in Born approximation. The role of ionization potential depression as well as the Inglis-Teller effect are shown. The model calculations have to be improved going beyond the lowest (RPA) approximation …
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 electrostatic stability of electron-positron plasmas is investigated in the point-dipole and Z-pinch limits of dipole geometry. The kinetic dispersion relation for sub-bounce-frequency instabilities is derived and solved. For the zero-Debye-length case, the stability diagram is found to exhibit singular behavior. However, when the Debye length is non-zero, a fluid mode appears, which resolves the observed singularity, and also demonstrates that both the temperature and density gradients can drive instability. It is concluded that a finite Debye length is necessary to determine the stabilit…
This paper describes the surface environment of the dense plasma arcs that damage rf accelerators, tokamaks and other high gradient structures. We simulate the dense, non-ideal plasma sheath near a metallic surface using Molecular Dynamics (MD) to evaluate sheaths in the non-Debye region for high density, low temperature plasmas. We use direct two-component MD simulations where the interactions between all electrons and ions are computed explicitly. We find that the non-Debye sheath can be extrapolated from the Debye sheath parameters with small corrections. We find that these parameters are r…
We analyze atomic structures of plasma embedded aluminum (Al) atom and its ions in the weakly and strongly coupling regimes. The plasma screening effects in these atomic systems are accounted for using the Debye and ion sphere (IS) potentials for the weakly coupling and strongly coupling plasmas, respectively. Within the Debye model, special attention is given to investigate the spherical and non-spherical plasma-screening effects considering in the electron-electron interaction potential. The relativistic coupled-cluster (RCC) method has been employed to describe the relativistic and electron…
The charge reduction effect, produced by the nonlinear Debye screening of high-Z charges occuring in strongly-coupled plasmas, is investigated. An analytic asymptotic expression is obtained for the charge reduction factor which determines the Debye-Hueckel potential generated by a charged test particle. Its relevant parametric dependencies are analyzed and shown to predict a strong charge reduction effect in strongly-coupled plasmas.
A bounded plasma where the electrons impacting the walls produce more than one secondary on average is studied via particle-in-cell simulation. It is found that no classical Debye sheath or space-charge limited sheath exists. Ions are not drawn to the walls and electrons are not repelled. Hence the plasma electrons travel unobstructed to the walls, causing extreme particle and energy fluxes. Each wall has a positive charge, forming a small potential barrier or "inverse sheath" that pulls some secondaries back to the wall to maintain the zero current condition.
A generalized linear dispersion relation of electromagnetic slab universal modes is derived, taking into account arbitrary ion charge state, electron finite Larmor radius (FLR) effects, and Debye shielding effects. As a consequence, it provides more accurate predictions and is applicable to a wider range of plasmas. We find that electron FLR effects have a weakly stabilizing effect on the slab universal instability in electron-ion plasma, while Debye shielding strongly stabilizes this instability when $λ_D$ approaches $ρ_i$ ($λ_D$ is the Debye length and $ρ_i$ is the ion gyro-radius). In parti…
The spectroscopic properties of Li atom and Li-like Ca and Ti ions in the plasma environment are investigated using a relativistic coupled-cluster (RCC) method. Assuming the plasma is of low density and very hot, we consider the Debye model with two approximations by accounting the screening effects: (i) in the nuclear potential alone and (ii) in both the nuclear and the electron-electron interaction potentials. First, the calculations for the energies and the lifetimes of the atomic states are carried out for the plasma free systems in order to check their accuracies following which they are …
We present a generalization of the Debye-Hückel free-energy-density functional of simple fluids to the case of two-component systems with arbitrary interaction potentials. It allows one to obtain the two-component Debye-Hückel integral equations through its minimization with respect to the pair correlation functions, leads to the correct form of the internal energy density, and fulfills the virial theorem. It is based on our previous idea, proposed for the one-component Debye-Hückel approach, and which was published recently \cite{Piron16}. We use the Debye-Kirkwood charging method in the same…
The probe intended for the characterization of cold plasma is introduced. The probe allows estimation of the Debye length of the cold plasma. The probe is based on the pronounced modification of surface properties (wettability) of polymer films by cold plasmas. The probe was tested with the cold radiofrequency inductive air plasma discharge. The Debye length and the concentration of charge carriers were estimated for various gas pressures. The reported results coincide reasonably with the corresponding values established by other methods. The probe makes possible measurement of characteristics…
For low-density plasmas, the classical limit described by the Debye-Hückel theory is still considered as an appropriate description even though a clear experimental proof of this paradigm is lacking due to the problems in determining the plasma-induced shift of single-particle energies in atomic systems. We show that Rydberg excitons in states with a high principal quantum number are highly sensitive probes for their surrounding making it possible to unravel accurately the basic properties of low-density non-degenerate electron-hole plasmas. To this end, we accurately measure the parameters of…
The effective potential acting on particles in plasmas being essentially the Debye-shielded Coulomb potential, the particles collisional transport in thermal equilibrium is calculated for all impact parameters $b$, with a convergent expression reducing to Rutherford scattering for small $b$. No cutoff at the Debye length scale is needed, and the Coulomb logarithm is only slightly modified.
The Debye sheath is known to vanish completely in magnetised plasmas for a sufficiently small electron gyroradius and small angle between the magnetic field and the wall. This angle depends on the current onto the wall. When the Debye sheath vanishes, there is still a potential drop between the wall and the plasma across the magnetic presheath. The magnetic field angle corresponding to the predicted sheath collapse is shown to be much smaller than previous estimates, scaling with the electron-ion mass ratio and not with the square root of the mass ratio. This is shown to be a consequence of th…
A crucial problem concerning a large variety of fusion devices is that the confinement due to an external magnetic field is lost above a critical density, while a widely accepted first principles explanation of such a fact is apparently lacking. In the present paper, making use of standard methods of statistical mechanics in the Debye--Hückel approximation, we give indications that for a plasma there exists a density threshold corresponding to a transition from order to chaos, the ordered motions being those in which the confining Lorentz force on a single electron prevails over the diffusive …
We present an investigation of the combined effects of the Debye-Huckel (DH) repulsive and overlaping Debye spheres (ODS) attractive interaction potentials around charged dust particles on collective modes, phase separation and ordered dust structures in a strongly coupled dusty plasma. We obtain static and dynamical information via Molecular Dynamics simulations in the liquid and crystallized phases and identify the onset of an instability in the transverse collective mode, by using (zero-temperature) lattice summation method. The present results are useful for understanding the origin of coa…
The expression for the Debye shielding in plasma physics is usually derived under the assumptions that the plasma particles are weakly coupled, so their kinetic energy is much larger than the potential energy between them, and that the velocity distributions of the plasma species are Maxwellian. The first assumption also establishes that the plasma parameter ND, the number of particles within a sphere with a Debye radius should be greater than 1, and determines the difference between weakly and strongly coupled plasmas. Under such assumptions, Poisson's equation can be linearised, and a simple…
In this paper a new model method for describing of the electrostatic screening in single-component systems which is free of Debye-Huckel's non-physical properties is presented. The method is appropriate for the determination of screening parameters in the case of the systems of higher non-ideality degree. The obtained screening characteristics are presented in a simple analytic form. The presented results make basic elements of a method for determination of screening characteristics in dense two-component plasmas, which are discussed in Part2 and Part 3 of this work.
A new model method for describing of the electrostatic screening in two-component systems (electron-ion plasmas, dusty plasmas, electrolytes, etc) is developed. The method is applicable to the systems of higher non-ideality degree. The expressions for all the screening parameters introduced in the previous paper (Part 1) of this work, as well as for an additional parameter characteristic for multi-component systems, are obtained. All these parameters are presented in a simple analytic form suitable for operative laboratory usage, especially for theoretical interpretation of experimental data.
The quantum kinetic equation for charged particles in strong electric fields is used to derive the nonlinear particle flux. The relaxation field is calculated quantum mechanically up to any order in the applied field provided a given Maxwellian plasma. The classical limit is given in analytical form. In the range of weak fields the deformation of the screening cloud is responsible for the Debye-Onsager relaxation effect.
The physical sense and the properties of a group screening parameters which are determined in the previous papers (Part~1 and Part~2) for single- and two-component systems is discussed in this paper. On the base of data from the mentioned papers are determined two new characteristic lengths which complete a new hierarchy system of screening lengths in plasma. It was shown that the methods developed in Part~1 and Part~2 generates results which are applicable to the strongly non-ideal gaseous and dusty plasmas, and manifest a very good agreement with the existing experimental data.
We consider a homogeneous plasma composed of $N$ particles of the same electric charge which interact through a Coulomb potential. In the large plasma parameter limit, classical kinetic theories justify that the empirical density is the solution of the Balescu-Guernsey-Lenard equation, at leading order. This is a law of large numbers. The Balescu-Guernsey-Lenard equation is approximated by the Landau equation for scales much smaller than the Debye length. In order to describe typical and rare fluctuations, we compute for the first time a large deviation principle for dynamical paths of the emp…
In this paper the experimental fact of presence of ionic - sound oscillations in plasma of tokamak DIII-D is given for plasma with additional heating by means of a neutral hydrogen beam. It contradicts modern theoretical representations about an opportunity of the build-up of such type of oscillations in plasma, when an ionic temperature is biger than an electronic one. Inasmuch as electrons provide the own screening by means of pushing aside forcibly around of itself of electrons and by baring an ionic skeleton their polarizing cloud should be of bigger radius than radius of Debye. Therefore …
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…
The quantum kinetic equation for charged particles in strong electric fields is derived and analyzed with respect to the particle flux. It is found that the applied electric field is screened nonlinearly. The relaxation field is calculated completely quantum mechanically and up to any order in the applied field. The classical limit is given in analytical form. In the range of weak fields the deformation of the screening cloud is responsible for the Debye-Onsager relaxation effect. The result beyond linear response presented here allows to investigate a field regime where no screening cloud is …
With plasma shielding effects of the Debye-Hückel model, we investigate the relativistic photoionization processes of H, Nb$^{40+}$ and Pb$^{81+}$ plasmas in the H-isoelectronic series. The shielded nuclear potential of Yukawa-type experienced by the electron is parameterized by Debye-length $D$. To account for relativistic effects non- perturbatively, we solve the Dirac equation for the bound as well as continuum wavefunctions. Contributions from multipole fields are calculated for high incident photon energies, while the angular distribution and spin polarization parameters of photoelectrons…
The effect of Coulomb interaction screening on non-relativistic free-free absorption is investigated by integrating the numerical continuum wave functions. The screened potential is taken to be in Debye-Hűckel (Yukawa) form with a screening length D. It is found that the values of the free-free Gaunt factors for different Debye screening lengths D for a given initial electron energy \eps_i and absorbing photon energy ω, generally lie between those of the pure Coulomb field and field-free case. However, for initial electron energies below 0.1 Ry and fixed photon energy, the Gaunt factors show d…
Some essential features of the ion plasma wave in both kinetic and fluid descriptions are presented. The wave develops at wavelengths shorter than the electron Debye radius. Thermal motion of electrons at this scale is such that they overshoot the electrostatic potential perturbation caused by ion bunching, which consequently propagates as an unshielded wave, completely unaffected by electron dynamics. So in the simplest fluid description, the electrons can be taken as a fixed background. However, in the presence of magnetic field and for the electron gyro-radius shorter than the Debye radius,…
A quantum plasma screening model based on the density matrix formalism is used to investigate theoretically the thermonuclear reactions $^{13}$C($α$, $n$)$^{16}$O and $^2$H($d$, $n$)$^3$He in laser-generated plasmas over a large range of densities and temperatures. For cold and dense (solid-state density) plasmas, our results show that quantum effects can enhance the plasma screening for thermonuclear reactions up to one order of magnitude compared to the classical case. This result can have impact on nuclear astrophysics predictions, and also may play a role for fusion energy gain prospects. …
Screening of Coulomb field of test charge in plasma with Bose condensate of electrically charged scalar field is considered. It is found that the screened potential contains several different terms: one decreases as a power of distance (in contrast to the usual exponential Debye screening), some other oscillate with an exponentially decreasing envelope. Similar phenomenon exists for fermions (Friedel oscillations), but fermionic and bosonic systems have quite different features. Several limiting cases and values of the parameters are considered and the resulting potentials are presented.
Due to screening effects, nuclear reactions in astrophysical plasmas may behave differently than in the laboratory. The possibility to determine the magnitude of these screening effects in colliding laser-generated plasmas is investigated theoretically, having as a starting point a proposed experimental setup with two laser beams at the Extreme Light Infrastructure facility. A laser pulse interacting with a solid target produces a plasma through the Target Normal Sheath Acceleration scheme, and this rapidly streaming plasma (ion flow) impacts on a secondary plasma created by the interaction of…
The effect of plasma environment on the atomic energy levels of He-like and Li-like Mg and Fe ions have been studied using Debye model. The equation-of-motion coupled-cluster (EOMCC) and Fock-space coupled-cluster (FSCC) formalisms in the relativistic frame work have been adopted to describe the atomic states and the energy levels of the above plasma embedded ions. Salient features of these methods have been described to account the two electron screening effects through the Debye potentials. The two-body screening potential has been derived in the multipole expansion form to evaluate the redu…
For atoms embedded in dense plasma, the plasma screening effects will greatly alter their structure and dynamics, and then determine the radiation transport properties of the plasma. In the present work, a new statistical model is proposed for treating electron screening effects on atoms in moderately/strongly coupled and dense plasmas, in which the three-body processes are found to significantly influence the plasma-electron density distributions and leads to a dependence of the distribution on the specific bound state of the targeted atom. As a critical check, the model is applied to simulat…
Plasma Screening Effects in Stark Broadening: A Fully Relativistic Close-Coupling Approach
College of Science, Xi’an University of Science and Technology（西安科技大学理学院）；National Key Laboratory of Computational Physics, Institute of Applied Physics and Computational Mathematics（计算物理国家重点实验室，应用物理与计算数学研究所）；HEDPS, Center for Applied Physics and Technology, Peking University（高能密度物理研究中心，应用物理与技术中心，北京大学）；College of Science, Xi’an University of Architecture and Technology（西安建筑科技大学理学院）
This paper has been withdrawn due to errors found by authors. A correct version of this paper is published in: Tomasz M. Rusin, Wlodek Zawadzki, "Quantum theory of symmetric screening in the Hartree approximation", Phys. stat. sol. (b) 243, 1286-1295 (2006), DOI: 10.1002/pssb.200541204.
The screening potential of a parton moving through a quark-gluon plasma is calculated using the semi-classical transport theory. An anisotropic potential showing a minimum in the direction of the parton velocity is found. As consequences possible new bound states and J/psi dissociation are discussed.
Screened potential, modified by non standard electron cloud distributions responsible for the shielding effect on fusion of reacting nuclei in astrophysical plasmas, is derived. The case of clouds with depleted tails in space coordinates is discussed. The modified screened potential is obtained both from statistical mechanics arguments based on fluctuations of the inverse of the Debye-Huckel radius and from the solution of a Bernoulli equation used in generalized statistical mechanics. Plots and tables useful in evaluating penetration probability at any energy are provided.
Research of influence of collisions on Friedel oscillations in quantum degenerate collisional plasma (T=0) is carried out for the first time. It is shown that presence of collisions in plasma leads to exponential decreasing of amplitude and phase shift of the Friedel oscillations. In linear approximation the phase shift is equal to the half of quantity inverse to product of Fermi's wave number by free length path of electrons. The correct expression for longitudinal dielectric permeability of the quantum collisional plasma found by the authors (see arxiv:1001.3937 [math-ph] 22 Jan 2010) is use…
This work presents accurate {\it ab initio} investigations of various spectroscopic properties of a few Li-like ions in presence of a plasma environment within the Debye screening potential. The coupled-cluster theory in the relativistic framework has been employed to compute ionization potentials, excitation energies, electric dipole oscillator strengths, and electric quadrupole transition probabilities of Li-like C$^{3+}$, N$^{4+}$, and O$^{5+}$ ions. The unretarded Breit interaction has been implemented to increase the accuracy of the calculations. The effects of ion density and temperature…
