Atomic data for neutron-capture elements

I. Photoionization and recombination properties of low-charge selenium ions^⋆

¹ Michigan State UniversityDepartment of Physics and Astronomy, 3248 Biomedical Physical Sciences, East Lansing, MI, 48824-2320, USA
e-mail: sterling@pa.msu.edu
² NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Code 662, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA
e-mail: michael.c.witthoeft@nasa.gov
³ Department of Astronomy, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, 20742, USA

Received: 14 February 2011
Accepted: 22 February 2011

Abstract

We present multi-configuration Breit-Pauli AUTOSTRUCTURE calculations of distorted-wave photoionization (PI) cross sections, and total and partial final-state resolved radiative recombination (RR) and dielectronic recombination (DR) rate coefficients for the first six ions of the trans-iron element Se. These calculations were motivated by the recent detection of Se emission lines in a large number of planetary nebulae. Se is a potentially useful tracer of neutron-capture nucleosynthesis, but accurate determinations of its abundance in photoionized nebulae have been hindered by the lack of atomic data governing its ionization balance. Our calculations were carried out in intermediate coupling with semi-relativistic radial wavefunctions. PI and recombination data were determined for levels within the ground configuration of each ion, and experimental PI cross-section measurements were used to benchmark our results. For DR, we allowed Δn = 0 core excitations, which are important at photoionized plasma temperatures. We find that DR is the dominant recombination process for each of these Se ions at temperatures representative of photoionized nebulae (~10⁴ K). In order to estimate the uncertainties of these data, we compared results from three different configuration-interaction expansions for each ion, and also tested the sensitivity of the results to the radial scaling factors in the structure calculations. We find that the internal uncertainties are typically 30–50% for the direct PI cross sections and  ~10% for the computed RR rate coefficients, while those for low-temperature DR can be considerably larger (from 15–30% up to two orders of magnitude) due to the unknown energies of near-threshold autoionization resonances. These data are available at the CDS, and fitting coefficients to the total RR and DR rate coefficients are presented. The results are suitable for incorporation into photoionization codes used to numerically simulate astrophysical nebulae, and will enable robust determinations of nebular Se abundances.