STRONG-COUPLING THEORY OF HYDROGEN PLASMAS

By adopting the modified-convolution approximation for the electron-electron correlation, the density-functional theory for the electron-ion correlation, and the hypernetted-chain approximation for the ion-ion correlation, an integral-equation formalism is developed for strongly coupled plasmas. With this scheme, the interparticle correlations are analyzed for hydrogen plasmas near the metal-insulator transition boundary. Several results of existing theories are reproduced with this approach. The boundaries of the phase diagram containing both the fully-to-partially ionized plasma transition and a metal-insulator transition are studied through investigation of the behaviors of the degree of ionization and the compressibility.