Statistical Physics of Dense Plasmas

Elementary Processes and Phase Transitions

Setsuo Ichimaru

• Publisher: Chapman and Hall/CRC
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN:
  9781138364684
• eBook ISBN:
  9780429775307
• Topic: Physical Sciences
• Subtopic: Astronomy & Astrophysics

This authoritative text offers a complete overview on the statistical mechanics and electrodynamics of physical processes in dense plasma systems. The author emphasizes laboratory-based experiments and astrophysical observations of plasma phenomena, elucidated through the fundamentals. The coverage encompasses relevant condensed matter physics, atomic physics, nuclear physics, and astrophysics, including such key topics as phase transitions, transport, optical and nuclear processes. This essential resource also addresses exciting, cutting edge topics in the field, including metallic hydrogen, stellar and planetary magnetisms, pycnonuclear reactions, and gravitational waves.

Scientists, researchers, and students in plasma physics, condensed matter physics, materials science, atomic physics, nuclear physics, and astrophysics will benefit from this work.

Setsuo Ichimaru is a distinguished professor at the University of Tokyo, and has been a visiting member at The Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), the Institute for Theoretical Physics at Johannes Kepler University, and the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics. He is a recipient of the Subramanyan Chandrasekhar Prize of Plasma Physics from the Association of Asia-Pacific Physical Societies and the Humboldt Research Award from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.

1

Introduction

Plasmas are any statistical systems containing mobile charged particles. When such a system is condensed, interaction between particles becomes so effective that the system may undergo changes in the internal states or the phase transitions. One applies the basic principles of statistical mechanics to elucidate the thermodynamic properties and the rates of elementary processes in such a system. We begin this volume by surveying salient examples of dense plasmas in the astrophysical and laboratory settings.

1.1 Dense Plasmas in Nature

Astrophysical dense plasmas are those we find in the interiors, surfaces, and outer envelopes of stellar objects such as neutron stars, white dwarfs, the Sun, brown dwarfs, and giant planets (e.g., Van Horn, 1991; Ichimaru, 2004b). Condensed plasmas in the laboratory setting include: metals and alloys (solid, amorphous, liquid, and compressed), semiconductors (electrons, holes, and their droplets), various realizations of dense plasmas (shock-compressed, diamond-anvil cell, metal vaporization, pinch compression), and cryogenic, nonneutral plasmas (Davidson, 1990) including pure electron- or ion-plasmas (Driscoll & Malmberg, 1983; Bollinger et al., 1990) in the electromagnetic traps or on the surfaces of dielectrics such as liquid helium (Grimes, 1978).

The physics issues in such dense plasmas are (Ichimaru, Iyetomi, & Tanaka, 1987): phase transitions, construction of the phase diagrams, and accounting for the stellar as well as magnetic structures. Phase transitions to be considered are: gas to liquid, liquid to solid (Wigner, 1935, 1938), insulator to metal (Wigner & Huntington, 1935), hadrons to quark–gluon plasmas (Yagi, Hatsuda, & Miake, 2005), and para- to ferromagnetism (e.g., Landau & Lifshitz, 1960a).

Elementary processes involved in those plasmas then include (Ichimaru & Ogata, 1995): scattering of electromagnetic waves (Rosenbluth & Rostoker, 1962; Ichimaru, 1973), photon transfers and opacities, emission of latent heat through phase transitions, electric and thermal transports, shear moduli of the crystalline solids, and enhanced thermonuclear as well as pycnonuclear reactions (Gamow & Teller, 1938; Cameron, 1959). The rates of these processes may depend sensitively on the changes in microscopic, macroscopic, thermodynamic, dielectric, and/or magnetic states of the matter. These changes of states may be associated with freezing transitions, chemical separations between the compositions, ionization or insulator-to-metal transitions, magnetic transitions, and transitions between normal to superconductive phases.

1.1.1 Astrophysical Dense Plasmas

Interiors of the main sequence stars such as the Sun are dense plasmas constituted mostly of hydrogen. The Sun has a radius, R _S ≅ 6.69 × 10⁵ km, and a mass, M _S ≅ 1.99 × 10³⁰ kg; the mass density is 1.41 g/cm³ on average. The central part of the Sun has a mass density of approximately 1.56 × 10² g/cm³, a temperature of approximately 1.5 × 10⁷ K, and a pressure of approximately 3.4 × 10⁵ Mbar (Bahcall & Pinsonneault, 1995). The mass fraction of hydrogen takes on a value of 0.36 near the center and 0.73 near the surface. The rate...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Fundamentals
• 3 Scattering of Electromagnetic Waves
• 4 Charged Particles or X-Rays Injected in Plasmas
• 5 Thermodynamics of Classical OCP and Quantum Electron Liquids
• 6 Phase Diagrams of Hydrogen
• 7 Transport Processes
• 8 Stellar and Planetary Magnetism
• 9 Nuclear Fusion in Metallic Hydrogen
• 10 Phase Diagrams of Nuclear Matter
• 11 Plasma Phenomena around Neutron Stars and Black Holes
• 12 Dawn of Gravitational-Wave Astronomy
• Appendix I: The δ-Functions
• Appendix II: Fourier Analyses and Application
• Appendix III: The Fluctuation-Dissipation Theorem
• Appendix IV: Fermi Integrals
• Appendix V: Functional Derivatives
• References
• Index