Monte Carlo simulations of ionization potential depression in dense plasmas

0463125 - FZÚ 2017 RIV US eng J - Journal Article
Stránský, Michal
Monte Carlo simulations of ionization potential depression in dense plasmas.
Physics of Plasmas. Roč. 23, č. 1 (2016), 1-5, č. článku 012708. ISSN 1070-664X. E-ISSN 1089-7674
R&D Projects: GA MŠMT LG15013
Institutional support: RVO:68378271
Keywords : Monte Carlo methods * aluminium * plasma temperature * computer modeling * ionization
Subject RIV: BL - Plasma and Gas Discharge Physics
Impact factor: 2.115, year: 2016

A particle-particle grand canonical Monte Carlomodel with Coulomb pair potential interaction was used to simulate modification of ionization potentials by electrostatic microfields. The Barnes-Hut tree algorithm was used to speed up calculations of electric potential. Atomic levels were approximated to be independent of the microfields as was assumed in the original paper by Ecker and Kröll; however, the available levels were limited by the corresponding mean inter-particle distance. The code was tested on hydrogen and dense aluminum plasmas. The amount of depression was up to 50% higher in the Debye-Hückel regime for hydrogen plasmas, in the high density limit, reasonable agreement was found with the Ecker-Kröll model for hydrogen plasmas and with the Stewart-Pyatt model for aluminumplasmas. Our 3D code is an improvement over the spherically symmetric simplifications of the Ecker-Kröll and Stewart-Pyatt models and is also not limited to high atomic numbers.

Permanent Link: http://hdl.handle.net/11104/0262399