Quantum-mechanical effects on eikonal cross section for elastic electron–ion collisions in dense high-temperature plasmas

Abstract

The eikonal method is applied to investigate quantum-mechanical effects on elastic electron–ion collisions in dense high temperature plasmas. An effective pseudopotential model taking into account both quantum-mechanical effects and plasma screening effects is applied to describe the electron–ion interactions in dense high-temperature plasmas. The straight-line trajectory method is applied to the path of the projectile electron in order to investigate the variation of the eikonal cross section as a function of the impact parameter, thermal de Broglie wavelength, Debye length, and projectile energy. In the first-order eikonal approximation, the quantum-mechanical effect reduces the elastic electron–ion scattering cross section. It is also found that the quantum mechanical effect is increased with increasing the projectile energy.