Electrical Conductivity of Nonideal Plasma

The electrical conductivity of fully ionized moderately nonideal plasmas with coulomb interaction parameters 0.1 < γ ≲ 1 where γ = Ze2n1/3/KT is the ratio of coulomb and thermal energies is calculated for displaced Maxwell and Fermi electron distributions, respectively. The electrons are scattered by an effective coulomb potential ϕ(r) = Zer-1 exp (-r/δ) which considers binary (0 < r < δ) and many-body (δ < r < ∞) interactions. The shielding distance is given by δ = δ4πn/3Z)-1/3 with β = β0γ-N ~ 1 for classical plasmas and г = ß(4πn/3Z)-1/3 with ß = ß0γ-Γ-M ~ 1 for quantum plasmas, where г = Ze2n1/3/h2 m-1n2/3 is the ratio of coulomb interaction and quantum potential energies of the electrons. It is shown that the resulting conductivity formulas are applicable to densities up to four orders of magnitude higher than those of the ideal conductivity theory, which breaks down at higher densities because the Debye radius loses its physical meaning as a shielding length and upper impact parameter.