« Virial » pressure of the classical one-component plasma

Abstract

Application of the virial theorem to a Coulomb system of N particles neutralized by a continuous background, leads quite naturally to the definition of a « virial » kinetic pressure for the system of particles, which is fundamentally positive. This definition is related, in a particular case, to the thermodynamic one used in previous works, which has the drawback to give negative values for sufficiently strong coupling