Partial degeneracy effects in the stopping of relativistic electrons in supercompressed thermonuclear fuels

Abstract

The effects of supercompressed and partially degenerate electron fluid on projectile energy loss of laser produced relativistic electron beams (REBs) in the MeV range are investigated. Partial degeneracy is shown to affect significantly the REB stopping power for 0.2≤θ=T∕TF≤1 while its variations with beam energy appear much less θ dependent. The latter exhibit a characteristic V-like shape for any target electron density, and θ values.