Warm Dense Matter Demonstrating Non-Drude Conductivity from Observations of Nonlinear Plasmon Damping

We present simulations using finite-temperature density-functional-theory molecular dynamics to calculate the dynamic electrical conductivity in warm dense aluminum. The comparison between exchange-correlation functionals in the Perdew-Burke-Enzerhof and Heyd-Scuseria-Enzerhof (HSE) approximation indicates evident differences in the density of states and the dc conductivity. The HSE calculations show excellent agreement with experimental Linac Coherent Light Source x-ray plasmon scattering spectra revealing plasmon damping below the widely used random phase approximation. These findings demonstrate non-Drude-like behavior of the dynamic conductivity that needs to be taken into account to determine the optical properties of warm dense matter.