skip to main content
DOE PAGES title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: Impact of free electron degeneracy on collisional rates in plasmas

Abstract

Degenerate plasmas, in which quantum effects dictate the behavior of free electrons, are ubiquitous on earth and throughout space. Transitions between bound and free electron states determine basic plasma properties, yet the effects of degeneracy on these transitions have only been theorized. Here, we use an x-ray free electron laser to create and characterize a degenerate plasma. We observe a core electron fluorescence spectrum that cannot be reproduced by models that ignore free electron degeneracy. We show that degeneracy acts to restrict the available electron energy states, thereby slowing the rate of transitions to and from the continuum. We couple degeneracy and bound electron dynamics in an existing collisional-radiative code, which agrees well with observations. The impact of the shape of the cross section, and hence the magnitude of the correction due to degeneracy, is also discussed. This study shows that degeneracy in plasmas can significantly influence experimental observables such as the emission spectra, and that these effects can be included parametrically in well-established atomic physics codes. This work narrows the gap in understanding between the condensed-matter and plasma phases, which coexist in myriad scenarios.

Authors:
; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; more »; ; « less
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES); USDOE Office of Science (SC), Fusion Energy Sciences (FES)
OSTI Identifier:
1580672
Alternate Identifier(s):
OSTI ID: 1643781
Report Number(s):
LLNL-JRNL-759620
Journal ID: ISSN 2643-1564; PPRHAI; 033216
Grant/Contract Number:  
AC02-76SF00515; SF00515; AC52- 07NA27344; AC52-07NA27344
Resource Type:
Published Article
Journal Name:
Physical Review Research
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Name: Physical Review Research Journal Volume: 1 Journal Issue: 3; Journal ID: ISSN 2643-1564
Publisher:
American Physical Society
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY

Citation Formats

Williams, Gareth O., Chung, H. -K., Künzel, S., Hilbert, V., Zastrau, U., Scott, H., Daboussi, S., Iwan, B., Gonzalez, A. I., Boutu, W., Lee, H. J., Nagler, B., Granados, E., Galtier, E., Heimann, P., Barbrel, B., Lee, R. W., Cho, B. I., Renaudin, P., Merdji, H., Zeitoun, Ph., and Fajardo, M. Impact of free electron degeneracy on collisional rates in plasmas. United States: N. p., 2019. Web. doi:10.1103/PhysRevResearch.1.033216.
Copy to clipboard
Williams, Gareth O., Chung, H. -K., Künzel, S., Hilbert, V., Zastrau, U., Scott, H., Daboussi, S., Iwan, B., Gonzalez, A. I., Boutu, W., Lee, H. J., Nagler, B., Granados, E., Galtier, E., Heimann, P., Barbrel, B., Lee, R. W., Cho, B. I., Renaudin, P., Merdji, H., Zeitoun, Ph., & Fajardo, M. Impact of free electron degeneracy on collisional rates in plasmas. United States. doi:10.1103/PhysRevResearch.1.033216.
Copy to clipboard
Williams, Gareth O., Chung, H. -K., Künzel, S., Hilbert, V., Zastrau, U., Scott, H., Daboussi, S., Iwan, B., Gonzalez, A. I., Boutu, W., Lee, H. J., Nagler, B., Granados, E., Galtier, E., Heimann, P., Barbrel, B., Lee, R. W., Cho, B. I., Renaudin, P., Merdji, H., Zeitoun, Ph., and Fajardo, M. Tue . "Impact of free electron degeneracy on collisional rates in plasmas". United States. doi:10.1103/PhysRevResearch.1.033216.
Copy to clipboard
@article{osti_1580672,
title = {Impact of free electron degeneracy on collisional rates in plasmas},
author = {Williams, Gareth O. and Chung, H. -K. and Künzel, S. and Hilbert, V. and Zastrau, U. and Scott, H. and Daboussi, S. and Iwan, B. and Gonzalez, A. I. and Boutu, W. and Lee, H. J. and Nagler, B. and Granados, E. and Galtier, E. and Heimann, P. and Barbrel, B. and Lee, R. W. and Cho, B. I. and Renaudin, P. and Merdji, H. and Zeitoun, Ph. and Fajardo, M.},
abstractNote = {Degenerate plasmas, in which quantum effects dictate the behavior of free electrons, are ubiquitous on earth and throughout space. Transitions between bound and free electron states determine basic plasma properties, yet the effects of degeneracy on these transitions have only been theorized. Here, we use an x-ray free electron laser to create and characterize a degenerate plasma. We observe a core electron fluorescence spectrum that cannot be reproduced by models that ignore free electron degeneracy. We show that degeneracy acts to restrict the available electron energy states, thereby slowing the rate of transitions to and from the continuum. We couple degeneracy and bound electron dynamics in an existing collisional-radiative code, which agrees well with observations. The impact of the shape of the cross section, and hence the magnitude of the correction due to degeneracy, is also discussed. This study shows that degeneracy in plasmas can significantly influence experimental observables such as the emission spectra, and that these effects can be included parametrically in well-established atomic physics codes. This work narrows the gap in understanding between the condensed-matter and plasma phases, which coexist in myriad scenarios.},
doi = {10.1103/PhysRevResearch.1.033216},
journal = {Physical Review Research},
number = 3,
volume = 1,
place = {United States},
year = {2019},
month = {12}
}
Copy to clipboard
Journal Article:
Free Publicly Available Full Text
Publisher's Version of Record
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevResearch.1.033216
Copyright Statement
Other availability
Search WorldCat Search WorldCat to find libraries that may hold this journal
Save / Share:
Export Metadata
Save to My Library
You must Sign In or Create an Account in order to save documents to your library.

Works referenced in this record:

The first data from the Orion laser; measurements of the spectrum of hot, dense aluminium
journal, December 2013

Delayed Onset of Nonthermal Melting in Single-Crystal Silicon Pumped with Hard X Rays
journal, June 2018

Observation of Reverse Saturable Absorption of an X-ray Laser
journal, August 2017

Dense Astrophysical Plasmas
journal, April 1991

Electronic Stopping Power in LiF from First Principles
journal, December 2007

Observations of the Effect of Ionization-Potential Depression in Hot Dense Plasma
journal, June 2013

Relativistic Hartree-Fock-Slater Calculations for Arbitrary Temperature and Matter Density
journal, March 1972

Ultrabright X-ray laser scattering for dynamic warm dense matter physics
journal, March 2015

Photoemission and photoionization time delays and rates
journal, November 2017

  • Gallmann, L.; Jordan, I.; Wörner, H. J.
  • Structural Dynamics, Vol. 4, Issue 6
  • DOI: 10.1063/1.4997175

Measurements of the K -Shell Opacity of a Solid-Density Magnesium Plasma Heated by an X-Ray Free-Electron Laser
journal, August 2017

Electron impact ionization of complex ions
journal, August 1983

  • Burgess, Alan; Chidichimo, Marita C.
  • Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 203, Issue 4
  • DOI: 10.1093/mnras/203.4.1269

Investigation of femtosecond collisional ionization rates in a solid-density aluminium plasma
journal, March 2015

  • Vinko, S. M.; Ciricosta, O.; Preston, T. R.
  • Nature Communications, Vol. 6, Issue 1
  • DOI: 10.1038/ncomms7397

Finite temperature dense matter studies on next-generation light sources
journal, January 2003

  • Lee, Richard W.; Moon, Stephen J.; Chung, Hyun-Kyung
  • Journal of the Optical Society of America B, Vol. 20, Issue 4
  • DOI: 10.1364/JOSAB.20.000770

Fluorescence and absorption spectroscopy for warm dense matter studies and ICF plasma diagnostics
journal, May 2018

  • Hansen, S. B.; Harding, E. C.; Knapp, P. F.
  • Physics of Plasmas, Vol. 25, Issue 5
  • DOI: 10.1063/1.5018580

Ab initio Exchange-Correlation Free Energy of the Uniform Electron Gas at Warm Dense Matter Conditions
journal, September 2017

Dense astrophysical plasmas
journal, September 2002

Updated Opal Opacities
journal, June 1996

  • Iglesias, Carlos A.; Rogers, Forrest J.
  • The Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 464
  • DOI: 10.1086/177381

The Matter in Extreme Conditions instrument at the Linac Coherent Light Source
journal, April 2015

  • Nagler, Bob; Arnold, Brice; Bouchard, Gary
  • Journal of Synchrotron Radiation, Vol. 22, Issue 3
  • DOI: 10.1107/S1600577515004865

Creation and diagnosis of a solid-density plasma with an X-ray free-electron laser
journal, January 2012

  • Vinko, S. M.; Ciricosta, O.; Cho, B. I.
  • Nature, Vol. 482, Issue 7383
  • DOI: 10.1038/nature10746

Warm Dense Matter Demonstrating Non-Drude Conductivity from Observations of Nonlinear Plasmon Damping
journal, May 2017

Electron scattering in time-dependent density functional theory
journal, June 2018

  • Lacombe, Lionel; Suzuki, Yasumitsu; Watanabe, Kazuyuki
  • The European Physical Journal B, Vol. 91, Issue 6
  • DOI: 10.1140/epjb/e2018-90101-2

Method of time resolved refractive index measurements of x-ray laser heated solids
journal, April 2013

  • Williams, G. O.; Chung, H. -K.; Vinko, S. M.
  • Physics of Plasmas, Vol. 20, Issue 4
  • DOI: 10.1063/1.4794964

Ionization potential depression and Pauli blocking in degenerate plasmas at extreme densities
journal, March 2019

Spot size characterization of focused non-Gaussian X-ray laser beams
journal, January 2010

  • Chalupský, J.; Krzywinski, J.; Juha, L.
  • Optics Express, Vol. 18, Issue 26
  • DOI: 10.1364/OE.18.027836

Experimental evidence for a phase transition in magnesium oxide at exoplanet pressures
journal, September 2013

  • Coppari, F.; Smith, R. F.; Eggert, J. H.
  • Nature Geoscience, Vol. 6, Issue 11
  • DOI: 10.1038/ngeo1948

Tracking the ultrafast XUV optical properties of x-ray free-electron-laser heated matter with high-order harmonics
journal, February 2018

Density-functional calculations of transport properties in the nondegenerate limit and the role of electron-electron scattering
journal, March 2017

  • Desjarlais, Michael P.; Scullard, Christian R.; Benedict, Lorin X.
  • Physical Review E, Vol. 95, Issue 3
  • DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevE.95.033203

Direct Measurements of the Ionization Potential Depression in a Dense Plasma
journal, August 2012

A time-dependent model for plasma spectroscopy of K-shell emitters
journal, October 1996

  • Lee, Richard W.; Larsen, Jon T.
  • Journal of Quantitative Spectroscopy and Radiative Transfer, Vol. 56, Issue 4
  • DOI: 10.1016/0022-4073(96)00081-7

On the Theory of Quantum Mechanics
journal, October 1926

  • Dirac, P. A. M.
  • Proceedings of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, Vol. 112, Issue 762
  • DOI: 10.1098/rspa.1926.0133

Quantum-Mechanical Calculation of Ionization-Potential Lowering in Dense Plasmas
journal, July 2014

The creation of large-volume, gradient-free warm dense matter with an x-ray free-electron laser
journal, March 2015

  • Lévy, A.; Audebert, P.; Shepherd, R.
  • Physics of Plasmas, Vol. 22, Issue 3
  • DOI: 10.1063/1.4916103

Über Gasentartung und Paramagnetismus
journal, June 1927

  • Pauli, W.
  • Zeitschrift für Physik A Hadrons and nuclei, Vol. 41, Issue 2-3
  • DOI: 10.1007/BF01391920

Kinetic modeling of x-ray laser-driven solid Al plasmas via particle-in-cell simulation
journal, June 2017

First lasing and operation of an ångstrom-wavelength free-electron laser
journal, August 2010

Importance of finite-temperature exchange correlation for warm dense matter calculations
journal, June 2016

Equation of state of carbon in the warm dense matter regime from density-functional theory molecular dynamics
journal, October 2018

X-ray Thomson Scattering in Warm Dense Matter without the Chihara Decomposition
journal, March 2016

FLYCHK: an extension to the K-shell spectroscopy kinetics model FLY
journal, September 2003

  • Chung, H. -K; Morgan, W. L.; Lee, R. W.
  • Journal of Quantitative Spectroscopy and Radiative Transfer, Vol. 81, Issue 1-4
  • DOI: 10.1016/S0022-4073(03)00064-5

Density-Functional Theory for Time-Dependent Systems
journal, March 1984

FLYCHK: Generalized population kinetics and spectral model for rapid spectroscopic analysis for all elements
journal, December 2005

Non-Maxwellian electron distributions in time-dependent simulations of low-Z materials illuminated by a high-intensity X-ray laser
journal, September 2013

  • de la Varga, Alberto G.; Velarde, Pedro; de Gaufridy, François
  • High Energy Density Physics, Vol. 9, Issue 3
  • DOI: 10.1016/j.hedp.2013.05.010

Saturable Absorption of an X-Ray Free-Electron-Laser Heated Solid-Density Aluminum Plasma
journal, January 2015

Saturable absorption of intense hard X-rays in iron
journal, October 2014

  • Yoneda, Hitoki; Inubushi, Yuichi; Yabashi, Makina
  • Nature Communications, Vol. 5, Issue 1
  • DOI: 10.1038/ncomms6080

Exploring non-adiabatic approximations to the exchange–correlation functional of TDDFT
journal, January 2018

  • Fuks, Johanna I.; Lacombe, Lionel; Nielsen, Søren E. B.
  • Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics, Vol. 20, Issue 41
  • DOI: 10.1039/C8CP03957G

Ultrafast electron dynamics and orbital-dependent thermalization in photoexcited metals
journal, September 2018

Exact Time-Dependent Exchange-Correlation Potential in Electron Scattering Processes
journal, December 2017

Thermal Properties of the Inhomogeneous Electron Gas
journal, March 1965

Measurements of continuum lowering in solid-density plasmas created from elements and compounds
journal, May 2016

  • Ciricosta, O.; Vinko, S. M.; Barbrel, B.
  • Nature Communications, Vol. 7, Issue 1
  • DOI: 10.1038/ncomms11713

Clocking Femtosecond Collisional Dynamics via Resonant X-Ray Spectroscopy
journal, February 2018

OPAL Equation-of-State Tables for Astrophysical Applications
journal, January 1996

  • Rogers, Forrest J.; Swenson, Fritz J.; Iglesias, Carlos A.
  • The Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 456
  • DOI: 10.1086/176705

Density functional theory calculations of continuum lowering in strongly coupled plasmas
journal, March 2014

  • Vinko, S. M.; Ciricosta, O.; Wark, J. S.
  • Nature Communications, Vol. 5, Issue 1
  • DOI: 10.1038/ncomms4533

Compound refractive lenses as prefocusing optics for X-ray FEL radiation
journal, February 2016

  • Heimann, Philip; MacDonald, Michael; Nagler, Bob
  • Journal of Synchrotron Radiation, Vol. 23, Issue 2
  • DOI: 10.1107/S1600577516001636
    [ × clear filter / sort ]

    Similar Records in DOE PAGES and OSTI.GOV collections: