Plasma screening effect in warm solid-density iron plasma

Abstract

We study a plasma screening effect in a warm solid-density iron plasma. All the calculations are done using the average atom model in the muffin-tin approximation using the density functional theory in local density approximation at finite temperature in local thermodynamic equilibrium. Between temperatures equal to 15 and 20 eV, the system undergoes a huge change due to the 3d orbital becoming bound. In clear, four electrons become bound. Various average ionizations are defined to see this effect. At temperature equal to 20 eV, all the average ionizations agree to predict a Fermi energy and a plasma frequency that are close to the temperature of the medium. The density of states show a prominent resonance due to d orbital just below temperature equal to 15 eV. We show that the spectral opacity is drastically modified near the L shell threshold due to the appearance of a 2p→3d absorption line.