Characterization of Rare Gas Atoms in Cold Dense Plasma

Abstract

By plotting the threshold energy as measured by Flynn and co-workers for Kr and Xe impurities in the alkali metals, it is demonstrated that the concept of an atom in a cold dense plasma is useful in the present context. The threshold energy of the rare gas is remarkably linear in the interelectronic spacing r_s between Li and Cs though it must saturate at the value of the first ionization potential for sufficiently large r_s .

Key Words:

• Excitation energy
• plasma
• virtual bound state.