Shear viscosity for dense plasmas by equilibrium molecular dynamics in asymmetric Yukawa ionic mixtures

Direct numerical simulation and Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes modeling of the sudden viscous dissipation for multicomponent turbulence

Simulations of a turbulent multicomponent fluid mixture undergoing isotropic deformations are carried out to investigate the sudden viscous dissipation. This dissipative mechanism was originally demonstrated using simulations of an incompressible single-component fluid [S. Davidovits and N. J. Fisch, Phys. Rev. Lett. 116, 105004 (2016)10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.105004]. By accounting for the convective and diffusive transfer of various species, the current work aims to increase the physical fidelity of previous simulations and their relevance to inertial confinement fusion applications. Direct numerical simulations of the compressed fluid show that the sudden viscous dissipation of turbulent kinetic energy is unchanged from the single-component scenario. More importantly, the simulations demonstrate that the mass fraction variance and covariance for the various species also exhibit a sudden viscous decay. Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes simulations were carried out using the k-l model to assess its ability to reproduce the sudden viscous dissipation. Results show that the standard k-l formulation does not capture the sudden decay of turbulent kinetic energy, mass-fraction variance, and mass-fraction covariance for simulations with various compression and expansion rates, or different exponents for the power-law model of viscosity. A new formulation of the k-l model that is based on previous improvements to the k-ε family of models is proposed, which leads to consistently good agreement with the direct numerical simulations for all the isotropic deformations under consideration.

Interfacial mixing in high-energy-density matter with a multiphysics kinetic model

We have extended a recently developed multispecies, multitemperature Bhatnagar-Gross-Krook model [Haack et al., J. Stat. Phys. 168, 822 (2017)JSTPBS0022-471510.1007/s10955-017-1824-9], to include multiphysics capabilities that enable modeling of a wider range of physical conditions. In terms of geometry, we have extended from the spatially homogeneous setting to one spatial dimension. In terms of the physics, we have included an atomic ionization model, accurate collision physics across coupling regimes, self-consistent electric fields, and degeneracy in the electronic screening. We apply the model to a warm dense matter scenario in which the ablator-fuel interface of an inertial confinement fusion target is heated, but for larger length and time scales and for much higher temperatures than can be simulated using molecular dynamics. Relative to molecular dynamics, the kinetic model greatly extends the temperature regime and the spatiotemporal scales over which we are able to model. In our numerical results we observe hydrogen from the ablator material jetting into the fuel during the early stages of the implosion and compare the relative size of various diffusion components (Fickean diffusion, electrodiffusion, and barodiffusion) that drive this process. We also examine kinetic effects, such as anisotropic distributions and velocity separation, in order to determine when this problem can be described with a hydrodynamic model.

Correlation and transport properties for mixtures at constant pressure and temperature

Transport properties of mixtures of elements in the dense plasma regime play an important role in natural astrophysical and experimental systems, e.g., inertial confinement fusion. We present a series of orbital-free molecular dynamics simulations on dense plasma mixtures with comparison to a global pseudo ion in jellium model. Hydrogen is mixed with elements of increasingly high atomic number (lithium, carbon, aluminum, copper, and silver) at a fixed temperature of 100 eV and constant pressure set by pure hydrogen at 2g/cm^{3}, namely, 370 Mbars. We compute ionic transport coefficients, such as self-diffusion, mutual diffusion, and viscosity for various concentrations. Small concentrations of the heavy atoms significantly change the density of the plasma and decrease the transport coefficients. The structure of the mixture evidences a strong Coulomb coupling between heavy ions and the appearance of a broad correlation peak at short distances between hydrogen atoms. The concept of an effective one component plasma is used to quantify the overcorrelation of the light element induced by the admixture of a heavy element.

Overestimation of Viscosity by the Green-Kubo Method in a Dusty Plasma Experiment

The Green-Kubo (GK) method is widely used in simulations of strongly coupled plasmas to obtain the viscosity coefficient. However, the method's applicability, which is often taken for granted, has not been tested experimentally. We report an experimental test using a two-dimensional strongly coupled dusty plasma. We find that the GK viscosity is ≈60% larger than the result of a benchmark hydrodynamic method, obtained in the same experiment with the same conditions except for the presence of shear.

Transport properties of an asymmetric mixture in the dense plasma regime

We study how concentration changes ionic transport properties along isobars-isotherms for a mixture of hydrogen and silver, representative of turbulent layers relevant to inertial confinement fusion and astrophysics. Hydrogen will typically be fully ionized while silver will be only partially ionized but can have a large effective charge. This will lead to very different physical conditions for the H and Ag. Large first principles orbital free molecular dynamics simulations are performed and the resulting transport properties are analyzed. Comparisons are made with transport theory in the kinetic regime and in the coupled regime. The addition of a small amount of heavy element in a light material has a dramatic effect on viscosity and diffusion of the mixture. This effect is explained through kinetic theory as a manifestation of a crossover between classical diffusion and Lorentz diffusion.