Energy loss and straggling of charged particles in plasmas of all degeneracies

The electronic energy loss and straggling of swift charged particles in weakly interacting plasmas are described in a quantum-mechanical formalism that includes thermal effects. It applies to plasmas over wide ranges of densities and temperatures reaching from degenerate to nondegenerate systems, as they are found in solids, stars, and in dense and dilute fusion plasmas. Using approximations for the dielectric function, we calculate the stopping power $S$ and the straggling $\Omega$ for slow particles in plasmas of varying degree of degeneracy, and discuss the dependence of the results on particle velocity and plasma temperature $T$. For nondegenerate plasmas, one obtains the relation ${\Omega }^2=2\mathrm{kTS}$ between these quantities.