Thermodynamic Properties of Correlated Strongly Degenerate Plasmas

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new numerical method for calculating thermodynamic properties of strongly coupled, degenerate plasmas, effectively handling quantum degeneracy and strong interactions where traditional theories are inadequate.

Contribution

It develops an improved path integral approach and a novel numerical technique to accurately model strongly coupled, degenerate plasma systems including spin effects.

Findings

Accurate calculations of internal energy, pressure, and pair correlation functions.

Method effectively handles strong coupling and degeneracy.

Results span a wide range of degeneracy parameters.

Abstract

An efficient numerical approach to equilibrium properties of strongly coupled systems which include a subsystem of fermionic quantum particles and a subsystem of classical particles is presented. It uses an improved path integral representation of the many-particle density operator and allows to describe situations of strong coupling and strong degeneracy, where analytical theories fail. A novel numerical method is developed, which allows to treat degenerate systems with full account of the spin scatistics. Numerical results for thermodynamic properties such as internal energy, pressure and pair correlation functions are presented over a wide range of degeneracy parameter.