Experimental verification of semiclassical and RPA calculations of the static conductivity in moderately nonideal plasmas.

We present an experimental verification of the semiclassical theory for static conductivity calculations in the case of moderately nonideal plasmas. Such plasmas are produced in linear flashlamps filled with pure helium and are characterized by on axis electron densities in the range 2x10(17)-1.7x10(18) cm(-3) and temperatures (2-3)x10(4) K. Precise measurements of the discharge electrical parameters have been carried out and in each case the impedance of the plasma was compared with the calculated value using the semiclassical theory, which is a simpler approximation than the quantum-mechanical theory based on the random-phase approximation.