Recursive determination of phase shifts for screened Coulomb potentials

Abstract

In the calculation of hot-plasma atomic structure, the continuum wavefunctions are characterized by phase shifts, which therefore determine the scattering cross-sections. In this short paper, we propose a recurrence relation for the phase shifts in the case of a particular type of parametric potentials widely used in atomic-structure codes. These potentials have to be linear combinations of static screened Coulomb potentials (Yukawa-type potentials) multiplied by polynomial functions.