In the deep solar and stellar interior, matter is mostly fully ionized. The Coulomb potentials are screened, resulting in effectively short-range interactions. This screening affects the nuclear reactions, because tunneling through a screened Coulomb barrier happens more easily than without screening. In a seminal paper, Salpeter [1] discussed this enhancement. He based his study on the approximation of a static screening potential. There have been legitimate concerns that dynamic effects could alter the result. Since 1996, Shaviv and Shaviv have been examining this question by numerical molecular-dynamics simulations [2-5]. The calculation is essentially classical, although electrons are treated with effective potentials that mimic some quantum corrections. Shaviv and Shaviv have reported dynamical effects at the high end of the Maxwell distribution (where the nuclear reactions effectively take place). Given the importance of these effects for solar and stellar modeling, we have recently begun to develop our own molecular-dynamics tools to verify the results by Shaviv and Shaviv in an independent calculation. Although our analysis is still in progress, we can already show first results.
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