Model-free Rayleigh weight from x-ray Thomson scattering measurements

Abstract

X-ray Thomson scattering (XRTS) has emerged as a powerful tool for the diagnostics of matter under extreme conditions. In principle, it gives one access to important system parameters such as the temperature, density, and ionization state, but the interpretation of the measured XRTS intensity usually relies on theoretical models and approximations. In this work, we show that it is possible to extract the Rayleigh weight -- a key property that describes the electronic localization around the ions -- directly from the experimental data without the need for any model calculations or simulations. As a practical application, we consider an experimental measurement of strongly compressed Be at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) [Döppner \emph{et al.}, \textit{Nature} \textbf{618}, 270-275 (2023)]. In addition to being interesting in their own right, our results will open up new avenues for diagnostics from \emph{ab initio} simulations, help to further constrain existing chemical models, and constitute a rigorous benchmark for theory and simulations.

References in corpus (5)

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• First principles simulations of dense hydrogen
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Cited by in corpus (3)

• Ab initio density functional theory approach to warm dense hydrogen: from density response to electronic correlations
• Unlocking the Power of Orbital-Free Density Functional Theory to Explore the Electronic Structure Under Extreme Conditions
• PyLIT: Reformulation and implementation of the analytic continuation problem using kernel representation methods