Solids facing a plasma are a common situation in many astrophysical systems and laboratory setups. Moreover, many plasma technology applications rely on the control of the plasma-surface interaction, i.e. of the particle, momentum and energy fluxes across the plasma-solid interface. However, presently often a fundamental understanding of them is missing, so most technological applications are being developed via trial and error. The reason is that the physical processes at the interface of a low-temperature plasma and a solid are extremely complex, involving a large number of elementary processes in the plasma, in the solid as well as fluxes across the interface. An accurate theoretical treatment of these processes is very difficult due to the vastly different system properties on both sides of the interface: quantum versus classical behavior of electrons in the solid and plasma, respectively; as well as the dramatically differing electron densities, length and time scales. Moreover, often the system is far from equilibrium. In the majority of plasma simulations surface processes are either neglected or treated via phenomenological parameters such as sticking coefficients, sputter rates or secondary electron emission coefficients. However, those parameters are known only in some cases and with very limited accuracy. Similarly, while surface physics simulations have often studied the impact of single ions or neutrals, so far, the influence of a plasma medium and correlations between successive impacts have not been taken into account. Such an approach, necessarily neglects the mutual influences between plasma and solid surface and cannot have predictive power.In this paper we discuss in some detail the physical processes a the plasma-solid interface which brings us to the necessity of coupled plasma-solid simulations. We briefly summarize relevant theoretical methods from solid state and surface physics that are suitable to contribute to such an approach and identify four methods. The first are mesoscopic simulations such as kinetic Monte Carlo (KMC) and molecular dynamics (MD) that are able to treat complex processes on large scales but neglect electronic effects. The second are quantum kinetic methods based on the quantum Boltzmann equation that give access to a more accurate treatment of surface processes using simplifying models for the solid. The third approach are ab initio simulations of surface process that are based on density functional theory (DFT) and time-dependent DFT. The fourths are nonequilibrium Green functions that able to treat correlation effects in the material and at the interface. The price for the increased quality is a dramatic increase of computational effort and a restriction to short time and length scales. We conclude that, presently, none of the four methods is capable of providing a complete picture of the processes at the interface. Instead, each of them provides complementary information, and we discuss possible combinations. PACS numbers:

Motivated by experimental evidence for mixed-valence correlations affecting the neutralization of strontium ions on gold surfaces, we set up an Anderson-Newns model for the Sr: Au system and calculate the neutralization probability a as a function of temperature. We employ quantum-kinetic equations for the projectile Green functions in the finite-U noncrossing approximation. Our results for a agree reasonably well with the experimental data as far as the overall order of magnitude is concerned, showing in particular the correlation-induced enhancement of a. The experimentally found nonmonotonous temperature dependence, however, could not be reproduced. Instead of an initially increasing and then decreasing a, we find over the whole temperature range only a weak negative temperature dependence. It arises, however, clearly from a mixed-valence resonance in the projectile's spectral density and thus supports qualitatively the interpretation of the experimental data in terms of a mixed-valence scenario.

Motivated by experimental evidence for a mixed-valence state to occur in the neutralization of strontium ions on gold surfaces we analyze this type of charge-transferring atom-surface collision from a many-body theoretical point of view using quantum-kinetic equations together with a pseudoparticle representation for the electronic configurations of the atomic projectile. Particular attention is paid to the temperature dependence of the neutralization probability which-experimentally-seems to signal mixed-valence-type correlations affecting the charge-transfer between the gold surface and the strontium projectile. We also investigate the neutralization of magnesium ions on a gold surface which shows no evidence for a mixed-valence state. Whereas for magnesium excellent agreement between theory and experiment could be obtained, for strontium we could not reproduce the experimental data. Our results indicate mixed-valence correlations to be in principle present, but for the model mimicking most closely the experimental situation they are not strong enough to affect the neutralization process quantitatively.

Using a helium ion hitting various metal surfaces as a model system, we describe a general quantum-kinetic approach for calculating ion-induced secondary electron emission spectra at impact energies where the emission is driven by the internal potential energy of the ion. It is based on an effective model of the Anderson-Newns-type for the subset of electronic states of the ion-surface system most strongly affected by the collision. Central to our approach is a pseudo-particle representation for the electronic configurations of the projectile which enables us, by combining it with two additional auxiliary bosons, to describe in a single Hamiltonian emission channels involving electronic configurations with different internal potential energies. It is thus possible to treat Auger neutralization of the ion on an equal footing with Auger de-excitation of temporarily formed radicals and/or negative ions. From the Dyson equations for the projectile propagators and an approximate evaluation of the selfenergies rate equations are obtained for the probabilities with which the projectile configurations occur and an electron is emitted in the course of the collision. Encouraging numerical results, especially for the helium-tungsten system, indicate the potential of our approach.

The most fundamental response of an ionized gas to a macroscopic object is the formation of the plasma sheath. It is an electron depleted space charge region, adjacent to the object, which screens the object's negative charge arising from the accumulation of electrons from the plasma. The plasma sheath is thus the positively charged part of an electric double layer whose negatively charged part is inside the wall. In the course of the Transregional Collaborative Research Center SFB/TRR24 we investigated, from a microscopic point of view, the elementary charge transfer processes responsible for the electric double layer at a floating plasma-wall interface and made first steps towards a description of the negative part of the layer inside the wall. Below we review our work in a colloquial manner, describe possible extensions, and identify key issues which need to be resolved to make further progress in the understanding of the electron kinetics across plasma-wall interfaces.