title: Measurements of continuum lowering in solid-density plasmas created from elements and compounds.
abstract: The effect of a dense plasma environment on the energy levels of an embedded ion is usually described in terms of the lowering of its continuum level. For strongly coupled plasmas, the phenomenon is intimately related to the equation of state; hence, an accurate treatment is crucial for most astrophysical and inertial-fusion applications, where the case of plasma mixtures is of particular interest. Here we present an experiment showing that the standard density-dependent analytical models are inadequate to describe solid-density plasmas at the temperatures studied, where the reduction of the binding energies for a given species is unaffected by the different plasma environment (ion density) in either the element or compounds of that species, and can be accurately estimated by calculations only involving the energy levels of an isolated neutral atom. The results have implications for the standard approaches to the equation of state calculations.
authors.affiliation: Clarendon Laboratory, Department of Physics, University of Oxford, Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3PU, UK.
authors.forename: O
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Ciricosta
authors.affiliation: Clarendon Laboratory, Department of Physics, University of Oxford, Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3PU, UK.
authors.forename: S M
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Vinko
authors.affiliation: Physics Department, UC Berkeley, LeConte Hall, Berkeley, California 94720, USA.
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Barbrel
authors.affiliation: Clarendon Laboratory, Department of Physics, University of Oxford, Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3PU, UK.
authors.forename: D S
authors.initials: DS
authors.lastname: Rackstraw
authors.affiliation: Clarendon Laboratory, Department of Physics, University of Oxford, Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3PU, UK.
authors.forename: T R
authors.initials: TR
authors.lastname: Preston
authors.affiliation: Institute of Physics ASCR, Na Slovance 2, 18221 Prague 8, Czech Republic.
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Burian
authors.affiliation: Institute of Physics ASCR, Na Slovance 2, 18221 Prague 8, Czech Republic.
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Chalupský
authors.affiliation: Center for Relativistic Laser Science, Institute for Basic Science (IBS), Gwangju 500-712, Korea.|Department of Physics and Photon Science, Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology, Gwangju 500-712, Korea.
authors.forename: B I
authors.initials: BI
authors.lastname: Cho
authors.affiliation: Atomic and Molecular Data Unit, Nuclear Data Section, IAEA, P.O. Box 100, Vienna A-1400, Austria.
authors.forename: H-K
authors.initials: HK
authors.lastname: Chung
authors.affiliation: SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, 2575 Sand Hill Road, Menlo Park, California 94025, USA.
authors.forename: G L
authors.initials: GL
authors.lastname: Dakovski
authors.affiliation: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 1 Cyclotron Road, Berkeley, California 94720, USA.
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Engelhorn
authors.affiliation: Institute of Physics ASCR, Na Slovance 2, 18221 Prague 8, Czech Republic.
authors.forename: V
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Hájková
authors.affiliation: SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, 2575 Sand Hill Road, Menlo Park, California 94025, USA.
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Heimann
authors.affiliation: SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, 2575 Sand Hill Road, Menlo Park, California 94025, USA.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Holmes
authors.affiliation: Institute of Physics ASCR, Na Slovance 2, 18221 Prague 8, Czech Republic.
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Juha
authors.affiliation: SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, 2575 Sand Hill Road, Menlo Park, California 94025, USA.
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Krzywinski
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720, USA.
authors.forename: R W
authors.initials: RW
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.affiliation: Deutsches-Elektronensynchrotron DESY, Notkestrasse 85, 22603 Hamburg, Germany.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Toleikis
authors.affiliation: SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, 2575 Sand Hill Road, Menlo Park, California 94025, USA.
authors.forename: J J
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Turner
authors.affiliation: SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, 2575 Sand Hill Road, Menlo Park, California 94025, USA.|IOQ, Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, Max-Wien-Platz 1, 07743 Jena, Germany.
authors.forename: U
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Zastrau
authors.affiliation: Clarendon Laboratory, Department of Physics, University of Oxford, Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3PU, UK.
authors.forename: J S
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Wark