Correlated fluctuations of electron populations in high temperature plasmas

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Abstract

This paper presents a model for a simple treatment of the fluctuations of electron bound states populations in equilibrium plasmas at high temperature. Fluctuations in the various states are correlated by matrix elements of the Coulomb interaction. The model imposes to recover the average occupation numbers given by usual Average Atom (AA) calculations. The additional numerical work consists only in a matrix inversion. Examples of application are shown (calculation of correlation factors, fluctuations of the total bound charges of the ions), and comparison with other published results is made.

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