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Updated: Jul 31, 2026

Investigation of Early Plasma Evolution Induced by Ultrashort Laser Pulses
Published on: July 2, 2012
Chaos driven fusion enhancement factor at astrophysical energies
1Laboratorio Nazionale del Sud, Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, via Santa Sofia, 62, 95123 Catania, Italy.
Abstract:
We perform molecular dynamics simulations of screening by bound target electrons in low energy nuclear reactions. Quantum effects corresponding to the Pauli and Heisenberg principles are enforced by constraints. We show that the enhancement of the average cross section and of its variance is due to the perturbations induced by the electrons. This gives a correlation between the maximum amplitudes of the internuclear oscillational motion and the enhancement factor. It suggests that the chaotic behavior of the electronic motion affects the magnitude of the enhancement factor.
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