Plasmas produced by heavy-ion beams as well as laser-driven indirect ICF target physics in a hohlraum-capsule system have attracted considerable attention recently. The study of the transport phenomena of these media, in their extreme conditions, still requires some important refinements. For that, a quantum collective approach is used to analyse the electron conductive opacity of strongly coupled plasma taking into account several non-ideality effects in addition to electron - electron (e - e) collisions, which make an important contribution. The basic formalism rests upon suitable extension of the Boltzmann - Bloch quantum transport equation with a unified scheme treating both short- and long-range collisions. The e - e interactions are shown to contribute to the conductive opacity in the low coupling regime. The extensively used Lorentz gas approximation cannot be justified for inertially confined plasmas or for plasmas of astrophysical interests. Results are presented under analytical forms with comparisons with existing theories.
Physics of relativistic laser-plasmas
Leveraging radiation reaction via laser-driven plasma fields