Novel Attractive Force Between Ions in Quantum Plasmas

Abstract

We report new attractive force between ions that are shielded by degenerate electrons in quantum plasmas. Specifically, we show that the electric potential around an isolated ion has a hard core negative part that resembles the Lennard-Jones (LJ)-type potential. Physically, the new electric potential is attributed to the consideration of the quantum statistical pressure, the quantum Bohm potential, as well as the electron exchange and electron correlations due to electron-1/2 spin within the framework of the quantum hydrodynamical description of quantum plasmas. The shape of the attractive potential is determined by the ratio between the Bohr radius and the Wigner-Seitz radius of degenerate electrons. The existence of the hard core negative potential will be responsible for the attraction of ions forming lattices and atoms/molecules, as well as for critical points and phase transitions in quantum plasmas at nanoscales.

5 pages, 3 figures

References in corpus (7)

• Self-consistent fluid model for a quantum electron gas
• Black Holes
• Colloquium: Nonlinear collective interactions in quantum plasmas with degenerate electron fluids
• Crystallization in two-component Coulomb systems
• Classical and quantum Coulomb crystals
• Shielding of a moving test charge in a quantum plasma
• Bound states near a moving charge in a quantum plasma

Cited by in corpus (24)

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• Quantum Hydrodynamic Theory for Plasmonics: Impact of the Electron Density Tail
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• On "Novel attractive forces" between ions in quantum plasmas -- failure of linearized quantum hydrodynamics
• Shukla-Eliasson Attractive Force: Revisited
• Laplacian-Level Quantum Hydrodynamic Theory for Plasmonics
• The ion potential in warm dense matter: wake effects due to streaming degenerate electrons
• Comment on "Discussion on `Novel attractive force between ions in quantum plasmas -- failure of simulations based on a density functional approach"
• Screening of a test charge in a free-electron gas at warm dense matter and dense non-ideal plasma conditions
• Ion Potential in Non-ideal Dense Quantum Plasmas
• Comment on "On Novel attractive forces between ions in quantum plasmas -- failure of linearized quantum hydrodynamics"
• Reply to comment of Shukla et al. on 'On "Novel attractive forces" between ions in quantum plasmas - failure of linearized quantum hydrodynamics'
• A critique of recent semi-classical spin-half quantum plasma theories
• Magnetohydrodynamic shocks in a dissipative quantum plasma with exchange-correlation effects
• Ground State Energy of Hydrogen-Like Ions in Quantum Plasmas
• Clustering of Ions at Atomic Dimensions in Quantum Plasmas
• Comment on "On quantum plasma: A plea for a common sense [Europhys. Lett., 99 25001(2012)]
• Quantum Hydrodynamics
• Machine Learning S-Wave Scattering Phase Shifts Bypassing the Radial Schrödinger Equation
• Effect of Dynamic Ions on Band Structure of Plasmon Excitations
• Nonlinear Maxwell-Schroedinger system and Quantum Magneto-Hydrodynamics in 3D
• Revisiting the Thomas-Fermi Potential for Three-Dimensional Condensed Matter Systems
• Modeling of relativistic ion-acoustic waves in ultra-degenerate plasmas