Mean Force Emission Theory for Bremsstrahlung in Strongly Coupled Plasmas

Bremsstrahlung emission and absorption are important mechanisms for radiation transport in many laboratory and natural plasmas that are relevant to stockpile stewardship. This work develops mean force emission theory -a theoretical framework that extends classical bremsstrahlung theory to strongly coupled plasmas- and benchmarks the theory against first principles classical molecular dynamics simulations. The first benchmark is a repulsively interacting (positron-proton) plasma. Here it is shown that strong coupling introduces a large peak in emission around the electron plasma frequency. It is also shown that mean force emission theory improves upon traditional weakly coupled Gaunt factors used for radiation transport in hydrodynamics codes by including plasma screening. An analytic form of a screening-corrected Gaunt factor for a weakly coupled plasma is given that can be implemented in a radiation transport model. Finally, work is shown extending the theory to an attractively interacting (electron-ion) plasma with basic quantum effects modeled using the Kelbg pseudopotential.