Three-body collisions in a plasma in a strong laser field

Electron-ion collisions in a high-density plasma in strong electromagnetic fields are considered. The applicability condition for the approximate model of pair collisions in strong fields are determined. It is shown that this condition is identical to the condition for the plasma to be transparent. Investigations were carried out by the test particle method generalized to the case of several scattering centers. An accurate calculation of short-range collisions is provided by a “jump” method that is based on the exact solution to the problem of the motion of a particle in a Coulomb potential. This method can also be applied in other approaches to simulating a collisional plasma (such as particle-in-cell and molecular dynamics methods).