Abstract
We report the great progress in the physics of dense strongly coupled plasmas that has been achieved over the past decade. Driven by ambitious inertial confinement fusion programs worldwide, matter at unprecedented high energy densities is generated and studied at various research facilities. Furthermore, progress in computational capacity has allowed to apply ab initio methods to strongly coupled systems so that a better understanding of the complex interplay between quantum and correlation effects is possible. However, despite this great progress many problems in the theory of dense strongly coupled plasmas have not been solved yet and new challenges in the theoretical treatment of many‐particle systems have appeared. We discuss these problems and possible approaches. Since progress in analytical methods can still be accomplished, and computational methods allow to evaluate basic expressions for a broad parameter domain, a combination of both methods gives presently an optimal approach to thermodynamic and transport properties of dense strongly coupled plasmas. This will have a strong impact on technical applications such as the diagnostics of inertial confinement fusion plasmas via Thomson scattering and other spectroscopic methods, but is also of paramount importance in astrophysics when modeling the interior of solar and extrasolar giant planets as well as other compact objects (© 2010 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)