Stopping power of an ion‐cluster with two‐ion correlation effects

The stopping power of an ensemble of fast ions, moving in a warm collisionless plasma, is computed on the basis of a classical dielectric theory, retaining two‐ion correlation effects. The computation of the stopping power of a large number of projectiles, characterized by a distribution function which has small, but finite, spreads both in the physical and in the velocity spaces, are performed. Average procedures in the configuration space are used to determine the friction force acting on the system as a whole and to evaluate the vicinage effects. Approximated scalings of the effective vicinage function and of the decorrelation time with the physical parameters of the ion‐plasma system are obtained. Numerical results are presented for the case of a C60‐cluster interacting either with a laboratory plasma or with a dense plasma relevant to the inertial confinement fusion.