Thermodynamic functions of the heated electron subsystem in the field of cold nuclei

The paper presents electronic heat capacities and thermal pressures calculated for aluminum and tungsten at densities rho(0) <= rho <= 2 rho(0) in the case when the temperature of electrons is finite (a few electron-volts) and nuclei are cold. Calculations were done with the all-electron full-potential linear muffin-tin orbital method (FP-LMTO) and compared with data obtained with the Liberman's average-atom model and the Vienna Ab-initio Simulation Package code (VASP) which uses pseudopotentials. It is shown that results obtained with different approaches qualitatively agree within the ranges of electron temperatures and densities under consideration, and quantitatively agree within 10% in most cases. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.