Transport cross sections relevant to cool hydrogen plasmas bounded by graphite

Abstract

Atomic collision quantities relevant to transport in hydrogen plasmas bounded by graphite walls are considered. Fully quantal, ab initio calculations of the differential and integral elastic scattering cross sections for H+, D+, and T+ colliding with C at center of mass energies between 0.1 and 200 eV are described. The computed elastic cross section and its transport moments, the momentum transfer, and viscosity cross sections, are compared with those from a simple analytical model (the Massey–Mohr approximation) and with a three-body classical scattering approach in order to extend the data to higher collision energies. For energies typical of the edge plasma, the elastic scattering cross section is found to be as much as 10 times larger than that estimated from the widely used analytical approximation. The highly accurate quantal results are also tabulated and made available to the plasma science community through the world wide web.