Detailed Line Broadening in Hot Dense Plasmas

Line shape profiles, which describe the distribution of bound-bound opacity, are sensitive to many different broadening mechanisms. In hot dense matter, the broadening is often dominated by time dependent interactions with close perturbing plasma particles, i.e., pressure broadening, or Stark broadening. Many Stark broadening treatments have been developed, however most rely on standard line shape approximations that break down at high densities and strong coupling conditions. This presents a challenge in the hot dense matter regime, where the transient electronic structure that forms during collisions between radiators and perturbers is complex, yet important to model, to calculate accurate theoretical line profiles. In this poster we highlight some specific approximations that limit the validity of standard line shape theory in the HDM regime and discuss a new approach to accounting for detailed electronic structure in line broadening, using average-atom self-energy calculations.