Electron transport phenomena and dense plasmas produced by ultra-short pulse laser interaction

Recent experiments with femtosecond lasers provide a test bed for theoretical ideas about electron processes in hot dense plasmas. We briefly review aspects of electron conduction theory likely to prove relevant to femtosecond laser absorption. We show that the Mott-Ioffe-Regel limit implies a maximum inverse bremsstrahlung absorption of about 50% at temperatures near the Fermi temperature. We also propose that sheath inverse bremsstrahlung leads to a minimum absorption of 7-10% at high laser intensity

Near-LTE linear response calculations with a collisional-radiative model for He-like Al ions

We investigate the non-equilibrium atomic kinetics using a collisional-radiative (CR) model modified to include line absorption. Steady-state emission is calculated for He-like aluminum ions immersed in a specified radiation field having fixed deviations from a Planck spectrum. The net emission is interpreted in terms of NLTE population changes. The calculation provides an NLTE response matrix, and in agreement with a general relation of non-equilibrium thermodynamics, the response matrix is symmetric. We compute the response matrix for 1% and 50% changes in the photon temperature and find linear response over a surprisingly large range

On the Thermodynamic Geometry of BTZ Black Holes

We investigate the Ruppeiner geometry of the thermodynamic state space of a general class of BTZ black holes. It is shown that the thermodynamic geometry is flat for both the rotating BTZ and the BTZ Chern Simons black holes in the canonical ensemble. We further investigate the inclusion of thermal fluctuations to the canonical entropy of the BTZ Chern Simons black holes and show that the leading logartithmic correction due to Carlip is reproduced. We establish that the inclusion of thermal fluctuations induces a non zero scalar curvature to the thermodynamic geometry.Comment: 1+17 pages, LaTeX, 4 eps figure

On Thermodynamical Properties of Some Coset CFT Backgrounds

We investigate the thermodynamical features of two Lorentzian signature backgrounds that arise in string theory as exact CFTs and possess more than two disconnected asymptotic regions: the 2-d charged black hole and the Nappi-Witten cosmological model. We find multiple smooth disconnected Euclidean versions of the charged black hole background. They are characterized by different temperatures and electro-chemical potentials. We show that there is no straightforward analog of the Hartle-Hawking state that would express these thermodynamical features. We also obtain multiple Euclidean versions of the Nappi-Witten cosmological model and study their singularity structure. It suggests to associate a non-isotropic temperature with this background.Comment: 1+39 pages, harvmac, 8 eps figure

On the Resolution of the Time-Like Singularities in Reissner-Nordstrom and Negative-Mass Schwarzschild

Certain time-like singularities are shown to be resolved already in classical General Relativity once one passes from particle probes to scalar waves. The time evolution can be defined uniquely and some general conditions for that are formulated. The Reissner-Nordstrom singularity allows for communication through the singularity and can be termed "beam splitter" since the transmission probability of a suitably prepared high energy wave packet is 25%. The high frequency dependence of the cross section is w^{-4/3}. However, smooth geometries arbitrarily close to the singular one require a finite amount of negative energy matter. The negative-mass Schwarzschild has a qualitatively different resolution interpreted to be fully reflecting. These 4d results are similar to the 2d black hole and are generalized to an arbitrary dimension d>4.Comment: 47 pages, 5 figures. v2: See end of introduction for an important note adde