Comparison of atomic potentials and bremsstrahlung Gaunt factors in dense aluminum plasmas

Abstract

We determine and compare high temperature high density atomic potentials for dense aluminum plasmas. We then evaluate bremsstrahlung Gaunt factors from these potentials utilizing various methods. The potentials considered are obtained from density functional theory, from the hypernetted chain/Poisson model and from the Thomas-Fermi model. The bremsstrahlung spectra obtained for these three potentials, with the partial wave expansion method and for incident electrons of about 1 keV, are in qualitative agreement. We indicate in which circumstances and with what precision bremsstrahlung Gaunt factors can also be estimated from much simpler potentials, such as the Debye or ion sphere model, and from much simpler calculations of the spectrum, such as the Born-Elwert approximation or a simple classical mechanics approach. The aluminum plasmas considered have temperatures of 0.5-1 keV and electron densities of 10 25, 10 24, 10 23cm -3.