Ab initio calculations of thermal conductivity of metals with hot electrons

Doklady Physics. 2013. Vol. 58. No. 8. P. 334–338.

Zhilyaev P., Norman G., Stegailov V.

Warm dense matter (WDM) is a state of a substance with a solid-state density and temperature from 1 to 100 eV. Researchers believe that such a state exists in the cores of giant planets. Investigation of WDM is important for some applications, such as surface treatment on the nanometer scale, laser ablation, and the formation of the plasma sources of the X-ray radiation into the inertial synthesis. In this study, the conductivity and the thermal conductivity are calculated based on density functional theory and the Kubo-Greenwood theory. This approach was already used to simulate the transport properties in a broad range of densities and temperatures, and its efficiency has been demonstrated. The conductivity and the thermal conductivity of aluminum and gold are investigated. Both the isothermal state, when the electron temperature equals the ion temperature, and the two-temperature state, when the electron temperature exceeds the ion temperature, are considered. The calculations were performed for a solid body and liquid in the range of electron temperatures from 0 to 6 eV.

Keywords: conductivity, ab initio methods, warm dense matter