Checking the Salpeter enhancement of nuclear reactions in asymmetric mixtures

TL;DR

This study uses orbital free molecular dynamics simulations and hyper netted chain calculations to analyze plasma enhancement effects on nuclear reaction rates in asymmetric mixtures, extending understanding across coupling regimes.

Contribution

It introduces a combined OFMD and MCHNC approach to accurately compute enhancement factors in asymmetric plasma mixtures, including low concentrations and high temperatures.

Findings

Enhanced understanding of plasma effects on nuclear reactions.

Validation of MCHNC method against OFMD simulations.

Proposal of a new interpolation for Salpeter enhancement factors.

Abstract

We investigate the plasma enhancement of nuclear reactions in the intermediate coupling regime using orbital free molecular dynamics (OFMD) simulations. Mixtures of H-Cu and H-Ag serve as prototypes of simultaneous weak and strong couplings due to the charge asymmetry. Of particular importance is the partial ionization of Cu and Ag and the free electron polarization captured by OFMD simulations. By comparing a series of OFMD simulations at various concentrations and constant pressure to multi-component hyper netted chain (MCHNC) calculations of effective binary ionic mixtures (BIM), we set a general procedure for computing enhancement factors. The MCHNC procedure allows extension to very low concentrations (5% or less) and to very high temperatures (few keV) unreachable by the simulations. Enhancement factors for nuclear reactions rates extracted from the MCHNC approach are compared with the Salpeter theory in the weak and strong coupling regimes, and a new interpolation is proposed.