# References

On density and temperature-dependent ground-state and continuum effects in the equation of state for stellar interiors –   
A Comment on the paper by S. Arndt, W. Däppen and A. Nayfonov 1998, ApJ 498, 349

Wolf-Dietrich Kraeft<sup>1</sup>, Stefan Arndt<sup>2</sup>, Werner Däppen<sup>3,4</sup>, Alan Nayfonov<sup>3,5</sup>

<sup>1</sup> Institut für Physik, Universität Greifswald, D-17489 Greifswald, Germany

<sup>2</sup> Max-Planck-Institut für Plasmaphysik, D-17489 Greifswald, Germany

<sup>3</sup> Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089-1342, U.S.A

<sup>4</sup> Theoretical Astrophysics Center, Institute for Physics and Astronomy, Aarhus University, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark

<sup>5</sup> IGPP, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA 94550, U.S.A.

Abstract

Misunderstandings have occurred regarding the conclusions of the paper by S. Arndt, W. Däppen and A. Nayfonov 1998, ApJ 498, 349. At occasions, its results were interpreted as if it had shown basic flaws in the general theory of dynamical screening. The aim of this comment is to emphasize in which connection the conclusions of the paper have to be understood in order to avoid misinterpretations.

Comment

The paper “On density and temperature-dependent ground-state and continuum effects in the equation of state for stellar interiors” by Arndt, Däppen and Nayfonov (1998; hereinafter ADN) dealt with the consequence of density and temperature effects on two-particle properties (such as binding energies and energies of continuum) for the equation of state, under conditions relevant for stellar interiors.   
The ADN paper applied, among other, the work by Seidel, Arndt and Kraeft (1995; hereinafter SAK). In particular, ground-state and continuum-edge shifts under plasma conditions are contained in SAK. In the ADN paper, an empirical approach is used to obtain thermodynamic quantities from the data contained in the SAK paper, in view of their possible testing by helioseismology.   
Essentially, two results of the SAK calculations were used by ADN. One was based on an elaborate formalism for dynamic screening, the other on a static approximation. The result of the ADN paper was that when the raw data of the SAK figure were taken to be thermodynamic quantities, plausible results (labeled STATIC) emerged for the static continuum edge, but the same technique yielded rather absurd quantities (labeled DYNAMIC) for the corresponding dynamic continuum edge.   
Although the conclusions of ADN were worded to allow various possibilities for the interpretation of this outcome, especially pointing at a potential inadequacy of the empirical identification of two-particle properties and thermodynamic quantities, it has been brought to our attention that the ADN paper is still at occasions misunderstood as if it had shown basic flaws in the general theory of dynamical screening.   
The aim of this comment is to explain once again in which connection the conclusions of ADN have to be understood in order to avoid misinterpretations, and to stimulate further investigations.   

The determination of two-particle properties is outlined in paragraph 2.3 of ADN along the lines given in the references (Zimmermann et al. 1978; Kraeft et al. 1986) and SAK, and takes carefully into account especially the dynamic character of the effective interaction and of the self energy. In paragraph 2.4.2 of ADN, the influence of bound and continuum states on thermodynamic functions is considered. Bound state energies are only very weakly density dependent (at least for $`Z=1`$ ions), consequently we will discuss here only the continuum edge problem. The continuum edge is defined as the sum of (momentum dependent) single particle energies, or of the self energies, respectively, taken for zero momenta. Consequently, these continuum energies are two-particle quantities, not thermodynamic ones.   
ADN were considering various approximation levels, referred to as DEBYE, STATIC and DYNAMIC. The results on the first two approximation levels differ only very little from each other as the Hartree-Fock contributions in Eq. (21) of ADN are not important for the densities considered. The Debye-shift \[last term of Eq. (21)\] is the result of thermodynamic averaging of the momentum dependent self energies over a Maxwellian and thus a thermodynamic quantity. This was shown explicitly in Kraeft et al. (1986), p. 115. Therefore, the Debye-shift gives the interaction part of the chemical potential (and thus the internal energy contribution $`U_4`$) in the Debye case.   
At the level of the dynamical approximation of the self energies, as considered in SAK and taken as a part of the approximation level DYNAMIC in ADN, the analogous thermodynamic averaging was not performed. ADN have chosen a simple procedure to estimate a thermodynamic quantity; this approximation consists in taking the continuum lines according to SAK. It leads to excellent thermodynamic quantities in the DEBYE and STATIC cases, but to severe discrepancies with observationally admissible results in the DYNAMIC case.   
In this comment, we want to emphasize that the unphysical result of the DYNAMIC approximation is due to the absence of thermodynamic averaging in the continuum curves on the static and dynamic approximation levels, respectively. By being an already thermodynamically averaged result, the Debye curve gives a physically consistent result. (By mere coincidence, the static case gives reasonable results, too.) However, such a consistency is absent when the dynamic continua according to SAK are used as thermodynamic data.   
In general, of course, a rigorous theory always has to account for the dynamics before doing (thermodynamic) averages. Of course, at the thermodynamic level, after averaging, the dynamics is no longer perceptible.   
While we have stressed here the importance of an inconsistency in the approximation introduced by ADN, their paper remains so far the only attempt to perform explicitly a quantitative calculation of thermodynamic quantities in the presence of dynamical screening. Future studies will have to show how to include such effects more rigorously.   

Acknowledgments: W.-D. K. acknowledges support by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, Sonderforschungsbereich 198. W. D. and A. N. acknowledge support by the grant AST-9618549 of the National Science Foundation and the SOHO Guest Investigator grant NAG5-6216 of NASA. W. D. was supported in part by the Danish National Research Foundation through its establishment of the Theoretical Astrophysics Center.