Electrical conductivity of plasmas of DB white dwarf atmospheres

TL;DR

This paper calculates the electrical conductivity of dense, partially ionized helium plasmas relevant to DB white dwarf atmospheres using theoretical models, and compares results with experimental data to validate the approach.

Contribution

It introduces a modified theoretical method for calculating plasma conductivity in dense, partially ionized conditions specific to white dwarf atmospheres, validated against experimental data.

Findings

Calculated conductivity over a wide range of plasma parameters.

Good agreement with existing experimental data despite low accuracy.

Results applicable to modeling DB white dwarf atmospheres.

Abstract

The static electrical conductivity of non-ideal, dense, partially ionized helium plasma was calculated over a wide range of plasma parameters: temperatures $1\cdot 10^{4}\textrm{K} \lesssim T \lesssim 1\cdot 10^{5}\textrm{K}$ and mass density $1 \times 10^{-6} \textrm{g}/\textrm{cm}^{3} \lesssim \rho \lesssim 2 \textrm{g}/\textrm{cm}^{3}$. Calculations of electrical conductivity of plasma for the considered range of plasma parameters are of interest for DB white dwarf atmospheres with effective temperatures $1\cdot 10^{4}\textrm{K} \lesssim T_{eff} \lesssim 3\cdot 10^{4}\textrm{K}$. Electrical conductivity of plasma was calculated by using the modified random phase approximation and semiclassical method, adapted for the case of dense, partially ionized plasma. The results were compared with the unique existing experimental data, including the results related to the region of dense plasmas. In spite of low accuracy of the experimental data, the existing agreement with them indicates that results obtained in this paper are correct.