Nuclear fusion reaction rates for strongly coupled ionic mixtures

Abstract

We analyze the effect of plasma screening on nuclear reaction rates in dense matter composed of atomic nuclei of one or two types. We perform semiclassical calculations of the Coulomb barrier penetrability taking into account a radial mean field potential of plasma ions. The mean field potential is extracted from the results of extensive Monte Carlo calculations of radial pair distribution functions of ions in binary ionic mixtures. We calculate the reaction rates in a wide range of plasma parameters and approximate these rates by an analytical expression that is expected to be applicable for multicomponent ions mixtures. Also, we analyze Gamow-peak energies of reacting ions in various nuclear burning regimes. For illustration, we study nuclear burning in C-O mixtures.

14 pages, 9 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev. D

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• Corrections to linear mixing in binary ionic mixtures and plasma screening at zero separation
• Checking the Salpeter enhancement of nuclear reactions in asymmetric mixtures
• Self-consistent strong screening applied to thermonuclear reactions
• Constraining Accreted Neutron Star Crust Shallow Heating with the Inferred Depth of Carbon Ignition in X-ray Superbursts
• Plasma screening of nuclear fusion reactions in liquid layers of compact degenerate stars: a first-principle study
• Nuclear Fusion Enhancement by Heavy Nuclear Catalysts