Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 April 2016
The calculation of atomic properties is plasma is critically dependent on the form of the ion-electron interaction potential. In the case of weak collisions in a low density ionized gas, the screening of the ion under consideration by surrounding plasma is adequately described by the Debye-Hückel potential (see, e.g., Weisheit, 1983). If the plasma is very dense, the perturbation approximations leading to the Debye form break down and other techniques must be employed to incorporate additional correlative effects. The transition from classical to this strongly coupled plasma occurs when the parameter , where is the mean charge per ion, , and ro is the ion-sphere radius, is greater than about one.