The aim of this paper is to describe the influence of target plasma nuclei on the correlated motion of H2+ protons traversing classical plasma matter. Electronic stopping of the protons pair is treated by means of the dielectric formalism, while nuclear collisions are dealt within the classical dispersion theory through a Monte Carlo method. It is shown that vicinage electronic forces screen Coulomb repulsion between the two protons from H2+ ion decelerating the increase of their relative distance. Vicinage forces also align the interproton vector along the motion direction. However, proton interactions with plasma nuclei mask most of these vicinage effects. These nuclear collisions hide the screening effect produced by the vicinage forces, increasing the proton relative distance even faster than for bare Coulomb repulsion. The interproton vector along motion direction is also misaligned due to nuclear collisions. Nuclear collisions effects are more significant in reducing projectile velocity. In particular, all these effects are studied in a deuterium (D) plasma with temperature Te = 10 eV and electronic density n = 1023 cm−3.

This paper presents theoretical results for the influence of plasma electron-electron collisions in correlated proton stopping forces. First calculations of the effects of these collisions on the vicinage forces for plasma matter are shown. In particular, these effects are studied in a Te = 10 eV and n = 1023 cm−3 plasma yielding a self-retarding proton force increased more than 11% at maximum value. Also vicinage forces enhances more than 15% in the analyzed cases. All this implies that plasma electron-electron collisions play an important role both in non and correlated ion stopping and must be considered for any application of ion energy deposition in plasma matter.