Profile-driven proton and triton stopping in warm dense matter: a density-derived stripping potential and effective excitation closure

OpenAlex · English

Abstract Charged‐particle stopping in warm dense matter (WDM) remains a key uncertainty in high‐energy‐density experiments and inertial confinement fusion (ICF) analysis, where state‐dependent electronic structure, partial ionization, and degeneracy modify energy‐loss mechanisms relative to cold‐matter baselines. In this work, a profile‐driven interface is formulated in which the electron‐density profile ρ ( r ) is treated as the primary state descriptor and is mapped to stopping‐model inputs through an energy‐dependent stripping distance r s ( E ) derived from a density‐based potential. A common active domain [ r s ( E ) , R WS ] is then used to define (i) an effective active‐electron number Z 2 ∗ ( E ) by radial integration and (ii) an effective mean excitation energy I ∗ ( E ) via a plasma‐frequency correlation, thereby enforcing internal consistency between charge participation and excitation scale. The closures { r s ( E ) , Z 2 ∗ ( E ) , I ∗ ( E ) } are propagated through a transparent collisional kernel to obtain stopping powers S ( E ) and continuous slowing‐down approximation ranges R ( E ) for protons and tritons over 0.05–10 MeV in representative CH and C WDM states. Model‐to‐baseline ratios relative to Li–Petrasso stopping are reported to connect the results to widely used ICF reference practices, and closure‐parameter sensitivity is quantified through uncertainty envelopes th