  An extended first-principles molecular dynamics (FPMD) method based on
Kohn-Sham scheme is proposed to elevate the temperature limit of the FPMD
method in the calculation of dense plasmas. The extended method treats the wave
functions of high energy electrons as plane waves analytically, and thus
expands the application of the FPMD method to the region of hot dense plasmas
without suffering from the formidable computational costs. In addition, the
extended method inherits the high accuracy of the Kohn-Sham scheme and keeps
the information of elec- tronic structures. This gives an edge to the extended
method in the calculation of the lowering of ionization potential, X-ray
absorption/emission spectra, opacity, and high-Z dense plasmas, which are of
particular interest to astrophysics, inertial confinement fusion engineering,
and laboratory astrophysics.
