Dynamical Screening of $\alpha$-$\alpha$ Resonant Scattering and Thermal Nuclear Scattering Rate in a Plasma

Abstract

We use effective field theory and thermal field theory to study the dynamical screening effect in the QED plasma on the $\alpha$-$\alpha$ scattering at the ${}^8$Be resonance. Dynamical screening leads to an imaginary part of the potential which results in a thermal width for the resonance and dominates over the previously considered static screening effect. As a result, both the resonance energy and width increase with the plasma temperature. Furthermore, dynamical screening can have a huge impact on the $\alpha$-$\alpha$ thermal nuclear scattering rate. For example, when the temperature is around $10$ keV, the rate is suppressed by a factor of about $900$. We expect similar thermal suppressions of nuclear reaction rates to occur in those reactions dominated by an above threshold resonance with a thermal energy. Dynamical screening effects on nuclear reactions can be relevant to cosmology and astrophysics.

20 pages, 7 figures, published version with an appendix to justify the hard-thermal-loop approximation with finite electron mass

References in corpus (7)

• The Primordial Lithium Problem
• Static quark-antiquark pairs at finite temperature
• Real and imaginary-time $Q\bar{Q}$ correlators in a thermal medium
• Heavy quark master equations in the Lindblad form at high temperatures
• alpha-alpha Scattering in Halo Effective Field Theory
• Non-relativistic bound states at finite temperature (I): the hydrogen atom
• An Effective Field Theory Approach to the Stabilization of ${}^8$Be in a QED Plasma

Cited by in corpus (3)

• Dynamical Screening Effects on Big Bang Nucleosynthesis
• Self-consistent strong screening applied to thermonuclear reactions
• Quarks to Cosmos: Particles and Plasma in Cosmological evolution