Effects of temperature and electron collision frequency on the elastic electron-ion collisions in a collisional plasma

Abstract

The effects of dynamic temperature and electron-electron collisions on the elastic electron-ion collision are investigated in a collisional plasma. The second-order eikonal analysis and the velocity-dependent screening length are employed to derive the eikonal phase shift and eikonal cross section as functions of collision energy, electron collision frequency, Debye length, impact parameter, and thermal energy. It is interesting to find out that the electron-electron collision effect would be vanished; however, the dynamic temperature effect is included in the first-order approximation. We have found that the dynamic temperature effect strongly enhances the eikonal phase shift as well as the eikonal cross section for electron-ion collision since the dynamic screening increases the effective shielding distance. In addition, the detailed characteristic behavior of the dynamic screening function is also discussed.