The average ion charge in the thermal ionization

We show verification of our definition previously formulated for the average ion charge ZI of plasmas and liquid metals in the electron-ion model for the case of the thermal ionization. For Rb plasmas of temperatures 5-30 eV and ion density rsI=5.388, the form of the electron-ion radial distribution function (RDF) determined by the conventional method shows unphysical behavior just at the moment when the shallow 4d-bound level appears in the plasma state. However, according to our definition of the average ion charge, we show that such unphysical behavior in the RDF of Rb and H plasmas does not exist even at high temperature where the thermal ionization occur.