Dense Plasma Opacity from Excited States Method

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new self-consistent model for plasma opacity calculations that accounts for excited states and free electron effects, leading to a 10% increase in bound-free opacity for oxygen at solar conditions.

Contribution

It presents a novel approach to include plasma effects self-consistently in opacity models, improving accuracy for high-density plasma conditions.

Findings

Bound-free opacity of oxygen increases by 10% with the new model.

The model treats free and bound electrons consistently, capturing plasma effects.

Exploration of free electron energy and entropy effects on opacity.

Abstract

The self-consistent inclusion of plasma effects in opacity calculations is a significant modeling challenge. As density increases, such effects can no longer be treated perturbatively. Building on a recently published model that addresses this challenge, we calculate opacities of oxygen at solar interior conditions. The new model includes the effects of treating the free electrons consistently with the bound electrons, and the influence of free electron energy and entropy variations are explored. It is found that, relative to a state-of-the-art-model that does not include these effects, the bound free-opacity of the oxygen plasmas considered can increase by 10%.