Resonances in nonrelativistic free-free Gaunt factors with screened Coulomb interaction

TL;DR

This paper investigates how Coulomb screening affects non-relativistic free-free absorption, revealing resonance phenomena and significant enhancements in Gaunt factors near critical screening lengths where bound states merge into the continuum.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of resonance effects in free-free Gaunt factors due to Debye-Hückel screening, highlighting dramatic enhancements at specific screening lengths.

Findings

Gaunt factors vary between Coulomb and field-free cases depending on screening length.

Resonance enhancements occur near critical screening lengths where bound states merge into the continuum.

Broad and narrow resonances are linked to virtual and quasi-bound states of low-energy electrons.

Abstract

The effect of Coulomb interaction screening on non-relativistic free-free absorption is investigated by integrating the numerical continuum wave functions. The screened potential is taken to be in Debye-H\H{u}ckel (Yukawa) form with a screening length D. It is found that the values of the free-free Gaunt factors for different Debye screening lengths D for a given initial electron energy \eps_i and absorbing photon energy \omega, generally lie between those of the pure Coulomb field and field-free case. However, for initial electron energies below 0.1 Ry and fixed photon energy, the Gaunt factors show dramatic enhancements (broad and narrow resonances) in the vicinities of the critical screening lengths, Dnl, at which the energies of nl bound states in the potential merge into the continuum. These enhancements of the Gaunt factors can be significantly higher than their values in the unscreened (Coulomb) case over a broad range of \eps_i. The observed broad and narrow resonances in the Gaunt factors are related to the temporary formation of weakly bound (virtual) and resonant (quasi-bound) states of the low-energy initial electron on the Debye-H\H{u}ckel potential when the screening length is in the vicinity of Dnl.