dE/dx to Subleading Order in the Plasma Density

Brown, Lowell S.; Preston, Dean L.; Singleton Jr, Robert L.

dE/dx to Subleading Order in the Plasma Density

Authors

Brown, Lowell S.

Preston, Dean L.

Singleton Jr, Robert L.

Description

Dimensional continuation is employed to compute the energy loss rate for a non-relativistic particle moving through a highly ionized plasma. No restriction is made on the charge, mass, or speed of this particle, but it is assumed that the plasma is not strongly coupled in that the dimensionless plasma coupling parameter g= e^2 κ_D/4πT is small, where κ_D is the Debye wave number. To leading order in this coupling, dE/dx is of the generic form g^2 \ln[g^2 C]. The prefactor of the logarithm is well known. We compute the constant C under the logarithm exactly. Our result differs from approximations given in the literature, with differences in the range of about 20% for cases relevant to inertial confinement fusion experiments.
To be published the in the 2005 Strongly Coupled Coulomb Systems proceedings, 4 pages, 2 Figures