Coulomb Log for Conductivity of Dense Plasmas

Abstract

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, strongly depend on the material. For increasing Z, log Λ is greater than 3 for increasingly high temperatures and lower densities.

References in corpus (4)

• Ab initio Exchange-Correlation Free Energy of the Uniform Electron Gas at Warm Dense Matter Conditions
• Density-functional calculations of transport properties in the non-degenerate limit and the role of electron-electron scattering
• Electron-ion scattering in dense multi-component plasmas: application to the outer crust of an accreting neutron star
• Potential of mean force for electrical conductivity of dense plasmas

Cited by in corpus (6)

• A Model of Electron Transport in Dense Plasmas Spanning Temperature Regimes
• A Kinetic Model for Electron-Ion Transport in Warm Dense Matter
• Correlations Between Conduction Electrons in Dense Plasmas
• Tabular Electrical Conductivity for Aluminum
• Exploring relaxation dynamics in warm dense plasmas by tailoring non-thermal electron distributions with a free electron laser
• Attosecond dispersion as a diagnostics tool for solid-density laser-generated plasmas