Plasma screening effects on eikonal phase for electron-ion elastic collisions in weakly coupled plasmas

Abstract

Eikonal approximation is applied to investigate elastic electron-ion collisions in weakly coupled plasmas. Plasma screening effects on eikonal phase are investigated for eikonal differential elastic scattering cross sections. The electron-ion interaction potential in weakly coupled plasmas has been obtained by the introduction of the longitudinal plasma dielectric function. The semiclassical straight-line trajectory method is applied to the path of the projectile electron in order to investigate the variation of the eikonal phase as a function of the impact parameter and the plasma parameters. In the first-order eikonal approximation, the dynamic plasma screening effect is identical to the static screening effect obtained by the Debye–Hückel potential. The eikonal differential elastic cross section substantially decreases with an increase in the projectile energy and increases as the plasma screening effect decreases through the Debye length. The plasma screening effects are more significant for large impact parameters.