Correlation-function method for the evaluation of plasma transport coefficients: The shear viscosity coefficient

The density dependence of the viscosity coefficient of a dilute fully-ionized plasma is obtained. We associate the viscosity coefficient $\eta$ with the autocorrelation function of the off-diagonal elements of the stress tensor. The technique used is essentially equivalent to that used in a previous paper by the authors. The result of our analysis is $\eta =\Sigma {m=1\mathrm{}}^{\infty }{U}_m\mathrm{}\left(T\right)\mathrm{}\times {\left(\ln \rho \right)}^{-m}$, where the $U_m\mathrm{}\left(T\right)\mathrm{}$ are the solutions to well-defined algebraic equations. If one Sonine polynomial is used, the shear viscosity is given by $\eta ={\left[d_1\mathrm{}\right(T)\mathrm{}\ln \rho +d_2\mathrm{}(T\left)\right]}^{-1\mathrm{}}$.