The electron energy loss rate due to radiative recombination ^⋆

¹ SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research, Sorbonnelaan 2, 3584 CA Utrecht, The Netherlands
e-mail: J.Mao@sron.nl
² Leiden Observatory, Leiden University, Niels Bohrweg 2, 2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands
³ Department of Physics, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow G4 0NG, UK

Received: 13 September 2016
Accepted: 2 December 2016

Abstract

Context. For photoionized plasmas, electron energy loss rates due to radiative recombination (RR) are required for thermal equilibrium calculations, which assume a local balance between the energy gain and loss. While many calculations of total and/or partial RR rates are available from the literature, specific calculations of associated RR electron energy loss rates are lacking.

Aims. Here we focus on electron energy loss rates due to radiative recombination of H-like to Ne-like ions for all the elements up to and including zinc (Z = 30), over a wide temperature range.

Methods. We used the AUTOSTRUCTURE code to calculate the level-resolved photoionization cross section and modify the ADASRR code so that we can simultaneously obtain level-resolved RR rate coefficients and associated RR electron energy loss rate coefficients. We compared the total RR rates and electron energy loss rates of H i and He i with those found in the literature. Furthermore, we utilized and parameterized the weighted electron energy loss factors (dimensionless) to characterize total electron energy loss rates due to RR.

Results. The RR electron energy loss data are archived according to the Atomic Data and Analysis Structure (ADAS) data class adf48. The RR electron energy loss data are also incorporated into the SPEX code for detailed modeling of photoionized plamsas.