Electron-Ion Coupling in Warm Dense Matter

by Andrew Ng (Department of Physics & Astronomy, University of British Columbia)

Monday 19 Jan 2015, 14:00 → 15:00 Europe/Berlin

Seminar room I-II (DESY Hamburg, CFEL bldg. 99)

Electron-ion coupling plays a key role in governing energy relaxation between the two subsystems in Warm Dense Matter.  There is now an unprecedented collection of nine studies that encompass three classes of material (semiconductor, semi-metal and metal), two types of two-temperature states (cold electrons with hot ions and hot electrons with cold ions), five methods for production of the states (laser-driven shock, X-ray driven shock, laser, FEL and MeV proton), and seven diagnostics for assessing electron-ion coupling (optical pyrometry, optical conductivity, Frequency Domain Interferometry, XANES, X-ray Rayleigh scattering, X-ray diffraction, and electron diffraction).  Even more remarkable is the substantial divergence in their findings even for similar materials.  This is stimulating a wide range of questions about Warm Dense Matter experiment and theory.  In this seminar I will discuss the five studies of noble metal (Au and Cu) and comment on the interpretation of the results.