Abstract
Abstract The screened interaction potential between ions taking into account the wave nature of ions is presented. The parameters considered in this paper correspond to those of dense plasmas with ideal or weakly coupled quantum electrons and semiclassical non-ideal ions. The wave nature of ions is described using the concept of quantum potentials. The obtained effective interaction potential between ions takes into account screening by electrons and ionic quantum nonlocality. It is shown that the polarization of electrons around an ion leads to a decrease in the ion’s effective thermal wavelength and, conversely, screening of the ion field by electrons becomes weaker due to the wave nature of the ion. Furthermore, on the basis of the derived ion–ion interaction potential, we investigate the structural properties of semiclassical non-ideal ions. For hydrogen plasmas, the ionic quantum nonlocality effect is significant at r S < 0.3. The obtained results are relevant to high energy density physics.