Molecular Dynamics Simulations of Temperature Equilibration in Dense Hydrogen

The temperature equilibration rate in dense hydrogen (for both T{sub i} > T{sub e} and T{sub i} < T{sub e}) has been calculated with large-scale molecular dynamics simulations for temperatures between 10 and 300 eV and densities between 10{sup 20}/cc to 10{sup 24}/cc. Careful attention has been devoted to convergence of the simulations, including the role of semiclassical potentials. We find that for Coulomb logarithms L {approx}> 1, Brown-Preston-Singleton [Brown et al., Phys. Rep. 410, 237 (2005)] with the sub-leading corrections and the fit of Gericke-Murillo-Schlanges [Gericke et al., PRE 65, 036418 (2003)] to the T-matrix evaluation of the collision operator, agrees with the MD data to within the error bars of the simulation. For more strongly-coupled plasmas where L {approx}< 1, our numerical results are consistent with the fit of Gericke-Murillo-Schlanges