Effective Potential Theory in Hybrid Fluid/Kinetic Modeling Of Magnetized High Energy Density Plasmas

The magnetized liner inertial fusion (MagLIF) concept is negatively impacted by the magneto-Rayleigh-Taylor (MRT) instability, which is seeded early in time by the electro-thermal (ET) instability. One of the project goals is to solve the electron drift kinetic equation in conjunction with the evolving fluid model in Tech-X's USim to correctly assess the ET instability’s dependence on resistivity, which is a sensitive function of density and temperature. Large thermodynamic drives associated with gradients at the interface between the liner and the coronal regions distort distribution functions and likely lead to non-local transport effects in a plasma which varies from weakly to strongly coupled. Effective potential theory (EPT) [1] has been shown to extend into the strongly coupled regime. The hypernetted chain approximation may be used to produce a coupled system of equations for the radial distribution function, g(r), giving a potential of mean force. In this poster, this potential of mean force is compared with two other potentials (cutoff and screened Coulomb) in predicting scattering cross sections and collisional transport coefficients.

1. S. Baalrud and J. Daligault, Phys Plasmas 21, 055707 (2014).