Ionic self-diffusion coefficient and shear viscosity of high-Z materials in the hot dense regime

High-Z materials exhibit a broad range of variation of the charge state in the hot dense regime, and so ionic structures become complex with increasing density and temperature owing to ionization. Taking high-Z uranium as example, we study its electronic and ionic structures in the hot dense regime by combining an average-atom model with the hypernetted chain approximation. The electronic structure is described by solving the Dirac equation, taking account of relativistic effects, including broadening of the energy levels, and the effect of other ions via correlation functions. On the basis of the electronic distribution around a nucleus, the ion pair potential is constructed using the modified Gordon-Kim model in the frame of temperature-dependent density functional theory. Because of the presence of ion-ion strong coupling, the bridge function is included in the hypernetted chain approximation, which is used to calculate the correlation functions. To take account of the influence on transport properties of the strong correlation of electrons with highly charged ions, we perform both classical and Langevin molecular dynamics simulations to determine ion self-diffusion coefficients and the shear viscosity, using the Green-Kubo relation and an ion-ion pair potential with good convergence. We show that the influence of electron-ion collisions on transport properties becomes more important as the free electron density increases owing to thermal ionization. (C) 2021 Author(s).

Automated summary

High-Z materials exhibit complex electronic and ionic structures in the hot dense regime, with considerations for relativistic effects and ion-ion coupling. Utilizing an average-atom model and hypernetted chain approximation allows for effective study of these materials' properties.