Estimating ionization states and continuum lowering from ab initio path integral Monte Carlo simulations for warm dense hydrogen

Fuente: arXiv
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Autores principales: Bellenbaum, Hannah M., Böhme, Maximilian P., Bonitz, Michael, Döppner, Tilo, Fletcher, Luke B., Gawne, Thomas, Kraus, Dominik, Moldabekov, Zhandos A., Schwalbe, Sebastian, Vorberger, Jan, Dornheim, Tobias
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2025
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author Bellenbaum, Hannah M.
Böhme, Maximilian P.
Bonitz, Michael
Döppner, Tilo
Fletcher, Luke B.
Gawne, Thomas
Kraus, Dominik
Moldabekov, Zhandos A.
Schwalbe, Sebastian
Vorberger, Jan
Dornheim, Tobias
author_facet Bellenbaum, Hannah M.
Böhme, Maximilian P.
Bonitz, Michael
Döppner, Tilo
Fletcher, Luke B.
Gawne, Thomas
Kraus, Dominik
Moldabekov, Zhandos A.
Schwalbe, Sebastian
Vorberger, Jan
Dornheim, Tobias
contents Warm dense matter (WDM) is an active field of research, with applications ranging from astrophysics to inertial confinement fusion. Ionization degree and continuum lowering are important quantities to understand how materials behave under these conditions, but can be difficult to diagnose since experimental campaigns are limited and often require model-dependent analysis. This is especially true for hydrogen, which has a comparably low scattering cross section, making high quality data particularly difficult to obtain. Consequently, building equation of state tables often relies on exact simulations in combination with untested approximations to extract properties from experiments. Here, we investigate an approach for extracting the ionization potential depression and ionization degree -- quantities which are otherwise not directly accessible from the physical model -- from exact ab initio path integral Monte Carlo (PIMC) simulations utilizing a chemical model. In contrast to experimental measurements, where noise and non-equilibrium effects add to the uncertainty of the inferred parameters, PIMC simulations provide a clean signal with well-defined thermodynamic conditions. Comparisons against commonly used models show a qualitative agreement, but we find deviations primarily for the high density and high temperature cases. We also demonstrate the decreasing sensitivity of the dynamic structure factor with respect to both ionization and continuum lowering for increasing scattering angles in x-ray Thomson scattering experiments. Our work has important implications for the design of future experiments, but also offers qualitative understanding of structure factors and the imaginary-time correlation function obtained from exact quantum Monte Carlo simulations.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2503_14014
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Estimating ionization states and continuum lowering from ab initio path integral Monte Carlo simulations for warm dense hydrogen
Bellenbaum, Hannah M.
Böhme, Maximilian P.
Bonitz, Michael
Döppner, Tilo
Fletcher, Luke B.
Gawne, Thomas
Kraus, Dominik
Moldabekov, Zhandos A.
Schwalbe, Sebastian
Vorberger, Jan
Dornheim, Tobias
Chemical Physics
Plasma Physics
Warm dense matter (WDM) is an active field of research, with applications ranging from astrophysics to inertial confinement fusion. Ionization degree and continuum lowering are important quantities to understand how materials behave under these conditions, but can be difficult to diagnose since experimental campaigns are limited and often require model-dependent analysis. This is especially true for hydrogen, which has a comparably low scattering cross section, making high quality data particularly difficult to obtain. Consequently, building equation of state tables often relies on exact simulations in combination with untested approximations to extract properties from experiments. Here, we investigate an approach for extracting the ionization potential depression and ionization degree -- quantities which are otherwise not directly accessible from the physical model -- from exact ab initio path integral Monte Carlo (PIMC) simulations utilizing a chemical model. In contrast to experimental measurements, where noise and non-equilibrium effects add to the uncertainty of the inferred parameters, PIMC simulations provide a clean signal with well-defined thermodynamic conditions. Comparisons against commonly used models show a qualitative agreement, but we find deviations primarily for the high density and high temperature cases. We also demonstrate the decreasing sensitivity of the dynamic structure factor with respect to both ionization and continuum lowering for increasing scattering angles in x-ray Thomson scattering experiments. Our work has important implications for the design of future experiments, but also offers qualitative understanding of structure factors and the imaginary-time correlation function obtained from exact quantum Monte Carlo simulations.
title Estimating ionization states and continuum lowering from ab initio path integral Monte Carlo simulations for warm dense hydrogen
topic Chemical Physics
Plasma Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.14014