Abstract
The equation of state for fully degenerate high-density plasmas is derived using a modified Thomas-Fermi model. Although the classical TF model is adequate to obtain the energy of an atom at very high densities it fails for low densities. A new version of this model for plasmas is presented which addresses this deficiency by including near-nucleus, exchange and correlation corrections. An analytic formula for the equation of stateE(n i ) is obtained, valid for all densities (n i <1026 cm−3). For low densities, Hartree-Fock results are reproduced with less than 1% error, and the classical result is recovered in the high-density limit.
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