We study ab initio approaches for calculating x-ray Thomson scattering spectra from density functional theory molecular dynamics simulations based on a modified Chihara formula that expresses the inelastic contribution in terms of the dielectric function. We study the electronic dynamic structure factor computed from the Mermin dielectric function using an ab initio electron-ion collision frequency in comparison to computations using a linear-response time-dependent density functional theory (LR-TDDFT) framework for hydrogen and beryllium and investigate the dispersion of free-free and bound-free contributions to the scattering signal. A separate treatment of these contributions, where only the free-free part follows the Mermin dispersion, shows good agreement with LR-TDDFT results for ambient-density beryllium, but breaks down for highly compressed matter where the bound states become pressure ionized. LR-TDDFT is used to reanalyze x-ray Thomson scattering experiments on beryllium demonstrating strong deviations from the plasma conditions inferred with traditional analytic models at small scattering angles.

• Received 4 January 2023
• Revised 29 March 2023
• Accepted 10 May 2023

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.107.065207