STOPPING POWER OF HEAVY-IONS IN STRONGLY COUPLED PLASMAS

We investigate the stopping power of heavy ions in strongly coupled el ectron plasmas by performing molecular dynamics (MD) computer simulati ons. A comparison with conventional weak coupling theories shows that these fail in describing the stopping power at low ion velocities and strong coupling. Then nonlinear screening effects become important and this causes a change in the dependence of the stopping power on the i on charge Z(p) at low ion velocities. From the MD simulation, we find the stopping power to behave like Z(p)(1.43) instead of the weak coupl ing behavior Z(p)(2) In(const/Z(p)). Similar results were recently obt ained by experiments in connection with electron cooling at heavy ion storage rings.