Thomas-Fermi simulations of dense plasmas without pseudopotentials
Related Experiment Video
Updated: Feb 15, 2026

Cooling an Optically Trapped Ultracold Fermi Gas by Periodical Driving
Published on: March 30, 2017
1Los Alamos National Laboratory, P.O. Box 1663, Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545, USA.
Abstract:
The Thomas-Fermi model for warm and hot dense matter is widely used to predict material properties such as the equation of state. However, for practical reasons current implementations use pseudopotentials for the electron-nucleus interaction instead of the bare Coulomb potential. This complicates the calculation and quantities such as free energy cannot be converged with respect to the pseudopotential parameters. We present a method that retains the bare Coulomb potential for the electron-nucleus interaction and does not use pseudopotentials. We demonstrate that accurate free energies are obtained by checking variational consistency. Examples for aluminum and iron plasmas are presented.
Related Concept Videos
Fermi Level
At absolute zero temperature, electrons fill all energy states up to the Fermi level, leaving upper states empty. As the temperature rises,...
Fermi Level Dynamics
Electron affinity in semiconductors refers to the energy gap between the minimum of its conduction band and the vacuum level and it is a critical parameter in determining how easily a semiconductor can accept additional electrons.
The work...
Dense Connective Tissue
Dense Regular Connective Tissue
In dense regular connective tissue, fibers are arranged parallel to each other, enhancing its tensile strength and resistance to stretching in the direction of the fiber orientations. Ligaments and tendons are made of dense regular...
Composition of Blood Plasma
Enlargement of the Plasma Membrane
Plasma Membrane in Bacteria and Archaea

