Electron-ion equilibration in a strongly coupled plasma

A recent study on the optical emission from a shock front in flight in silicon has revealed significant deviations of the shock-produced state from thermodynamic equilibrium. The findings also yielded an estimate of the rate of energy equilibration between electrons and ions in a plasma above solid densities, providing important insight into the transport properties of a strongly coupled plasma. Highlights of this study have been reported earlier. Here, we present a detailed account of the theoretical calculation, the experimental measurement, and the interpretation of the results.