Quasi-molecular emission from highly correlated plasmas

Meeting on Radiative Properties of Hot Dense Matter III, LAWRENCE LIVERMORE NATL LAB, LIVERMORE, CALIFORNIA, 1996International audienceThe present work reports results on quasi-molecular emission from hot dense plasmas. Results from Molecular Dynamics simulations are first presented which show that a treatment of bound states in terms of two-centre wavefunctions is possible in plasmas under specific conditions. A theoretical model for describing the transient molecular behaviour in hot dense plasmas is then proposed and applied to the case of a transient F8+/F9+ molecular ion. We demonstrate that two electronic transitions (namely, using the spherical quantum numbers, 541(g)-210(u) and 650(u)-100(g)) related to this transient structure can be exhibited in experimental spectra from laser-produced plasmas implying high density conditions. These predictions are shown to be in excellent agreement with results from colliding foil experiments which have led to the exhibition of a low-energy satellite-like feature on the profile of the FLy beta line having no explanation in terms of standard line profile theories. (C) 1997 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved