Electric and thermal resistivities in dense high-<i>Z</i>plasmas

Abstract

Analytic expressions for the electric and thermal resistivities in dense high-Z plasmas have been obtained. The expressions incorporate phase-shift calculations of high-Z ion-sphere-model cross sections as well as existing quantum-mechanical transport calculations for hydrogen plasmas, and are applicable to fluid plasmas with 1\ensuremath{\le}Z\ensuremath{\le}26; strong-coupling effects between electrons and ions are particularly clarified. It has been shown that the heat capacity for a dense plasma may have a considerable effect, modifying the rate of thermal conduction. The results are compared with other theoretical predictions for those plasma parameters appropriate to degenerate stars.