Why the Salpeter screening formula cannot be applied in the Sun

Abstract

In a recent paper, Bahcall et al. (2000) list various new approaches to the problem of screening of nuclear reactions in stellar plasma and assert that they are all wrong or irrelevant. Except for two, all approaches mentioned by Bahcall et al. assume the mean field approximation. The two exceptions are Carraro et al. (1988) and Shaviv & Shaviv (2000a). While Carraro et al. (1988) paper is discussed shortly and refuted by Bahcall et al. (2000) the Shaviv & Shaviv (2000a) paper is not discussed and refuted only by association. However, the association is totally unfounded because Shaviv & Shaviv (2000a) have shown that kinetic equations must be used to solve the screening problem and that the mean field approximation is inadequate for this problem. They also showed that the Carraro et al. (1988) approach is erroneous. Therefore we summarize here the method of $S^{2}$ and their main result. We contrast the kinetic equations method with the mean field approximation and expose the different assumptions and omissions in each method.