X-ray absorption spectra of plasmas

In this paper we present a theoretical method to calculate the absorption spectra of hot dense plasmas. Based on our fully relativistic treatment incorporated with the quantum defect theory to handle the huge number of transition arrays from many configurations with high principal quantum number, we can calculate the absorption spectra for any element or multi-element plasmas with little computational efforts. We calculate the absorption spectra of C10H16O5 plasmas, which are in good agreement with the experimental spectra. We can then provide diagnostic analysis for plasmas in relevant inertial confinement fusion (ICF) experiments; namely not only to determine plasmas’ temperatures and densities,but also to provide the population densities of various ionic stages. Our theoretical method verified by “benchmark experiments” will be a basic tool to provide “precise” opacity data for the ICF research.