DENSE HYDROGEN PLASMA - COMPARISON BETWEEN MODELS

Static and dynamical properties of the dense hydrogen plasma (p greate r than or equal to 2.6 g cm(-3), 0.1 < T < 5 eV) in the strongly coupl ed regime art: compared through different numerical approaches. It is shown that simplified density-functional molecular-dynamics simulation s (DFMD), without orbitals, such as Thomas-Fermi Dirac or Thomas-Fermi -Dirac-Weiszacker simulations give similar results to more sophisticat ed descriptions such as Car-Parrinello (CP), tight binding, or path-in tegral Monte Carlo, in a wide range of temperatures. At very low tempe rature, screening effects predicted by DFMD are still less pronounced than CP simulations.