Dynamic screening of thermonuclear reactions

The authors calculate the enhancement factors for weakly screened thermonuclear reactions, explicitly accounting for their dependence on the velocity of the colliding particles. It is found that enhancements can be appreciably smaller than those given by the standard adiabatic expression if the Gamow velocity is greater than the ion thermal velocity. The authors apply this result to the solar interior and find a small correction (-2.3%) to the neutrino capture rate expected from the 37Cl detector. Results for other astrophysical plasmas are discussed.