Effective Potential Theory for Magnetized Plasmas

The effective potential theory (EPT) is a recent proposal for extending traditional transport theory into the strongly coupled regime [1]. By comparing with ultracold plasma experiments and classical molecular dynamics simulations, it has proven accurate for modeling a variety of transport coefficients (including diffusion, viscosity and temperature relaxation) for Coulomb coupling parameters less than 20. This work extends EPT to magnetized plasmas. A Chapman-Enskog type method is applied based on a collision cross section determined by EPT. The generalization of resistive MHD to the strongly coupled regime is thus obtained, where explicit expressions for all single fluid transport processes are computed, including diffusion, electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity and viscosity. Results for diffusion, as well as the relaxation of a temperature anisotropy, are compared with recent molecular dynamics simulations of the one-component plasma [2]. Applications to both ultracold neutral plasma experiments, and magnetized high energy density plasmas will also be discussed. [1] Baalrud and Daligault, PRL 110, 235001 (2013). [2] Baalrud and Daligault, PRE 96, 043202 (2017).