Resonant Compton scattering of photons from hydrogenic ions in nonideal plasmas

Plasma screening and collective effects on the resonant Compton scattering of photons by bound atomic electrons from the hydrogenic ions in classical nonideal plasmas are investigated. An effective pseudopotential model taking into account the plasma screening and collective effects is applied to describe the interaction potential in nonideal plasmas. The screened wave functions and energy eigenvalues for the ground and excited states of the target ion are obtained by the Ritz variational method. The nonperturbative expression for the transition matrix element near resonance is obtained by the basic lowest-order photon-perturbation Hamiltonian in the electronic dipole representation. It is found that the resonant Compton scattering cross section including the plasma screening effect is greater than the cross section neglecting the plasma screening effect. It is also found that the collective effect increases the Compton cross section at the resonance. (C) 2001 American Institute of Physics.