Ionization state and bound level populations in hot,dense plasmas

The ionization state and bound level populations in hot, dense plasmas are studied in the average atom approximation. Bound level energies are fixed self-consistently with the complete set of population numbers, using pre-existent Hartree-Fock calculations. We present a pressure- ionization scheme that gradually merges bound electrons into the continuum. To solve the nonlinear algebraic system of equations of the model, we have derived an efficient iterative algorithm. Results are shown for aluminum and iron.