Spherical versus nonspherical plasma-screening effects on semiclassical electron–ion collisional excitations in weakly coupled plasmas

Abstract

Spherical and nonspherical plasma-screening effects are investigated on electron-impact excitation of hydrogenic ions in weakly coupled plasmas. Semiclassical straight-line trajectory method is used to describe the behavior of the projectile electron. Scaled 1s→2p−1 semiclassical excitation probabilities are obtained by the spherical and nonspherical Debye–Hückel interaction potentials. The plasma-screening effect of the bound atomic wave functions in the transition probability obtained by the spherical Debye–Hückel model is found to be more effective than that in the transition probability obtained by the nonspherical Debye–Hückel model. The maximum position of the transition probability obtained by the nonspherical Debye–Hückel potential is more receded from the nucleus than that of transition probability obtained by the spherical Debye–Hückel potential.