Issue |
A&A
Volume 518, July-August 2010
Herschel: the first science highlights
|
|
---|---|---|
Article Number | A64 | |
Number of page(s) | 20 | |
Section | Atomic, molecular, and nuclear data | |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/201014170 | |
Published online | 03 September 2010 |
R-matrix electron-impact excitation data for the Ne-like
iso-electronic sequence
G. Y. Liang - N. R. Badnell
Department of Physics, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, G4 0NG, UK
Received 1 February 2010 / Accepted 7 May 2010
Abstract
We present results for the electron-impact excitation
of all Ne-like ions from Na+ to Kr26+ obtained using the
intermediate-coupling frame transformation R-matrix approach.
For each ion's calculation, the close-coupling expansion is taken
to be the 113 LS terms (209 levels) belonging to the
configurations
,
,
(
,
and
), and
(
,
and
). An additional configuration interaction effect arising
from configurations of
(
and
)
was included in the target
expansion. A detailed comparison of the target structure has been
made for six specific ions (Si4+, Ar8+, Ca10+,
Fe16+, Ni18+, and Kr26+) spanning the sequence to
assess the accuracy for the entire sequence. Effective collision
strengths (
s) are presented at temperatures ranging from
K to
K (where q is the
residual charge of ions, i.e. Z-10). Detailed comparisons for
the
s are made with the results of previous calculations
for several ions, which span the sequence. Furthermore, we examine
the iso-electronic trends of effective collision strengths as a
function of temperature. The present results are the only
R-matrix ones for the majority of the ions and the most
extensive and complete data for modelling to-date.
Key words: atomic data - atomic processes - plasmas
1 Introduction
Because Ne-like
ions have a stable closed L-shell ground state, they show high
abundance over a wide range of temperatures in ionization
equilibrium for each iso-nuclear sequence (see
Mazzotta et al. 1998;
Bryans et al. 2009,2006). Thus, they
attract extensive studies for spectral diagnostic and modelling in
astrophysical and laboratory plasmas, and in particular iron, due
to its high cosmic abundance. X-ray lasers (
Mathews et al. 1985;
Tomasel et al. 1997) based on Ne-like ions
are another significant area of interest. However, the atomic
structure and electron-impact excitation (EIE) of Ne-like ions are
extremely complex, which results in there being large
uncertainties in line intensity ratios (
vs
,
this is usually designated 3C/3D, as well as
vs. 3C) between measurements or observations and
predictions (
Beiersdorfer et al. 2002,2001;
Gu et al. 2004). For example, even for iron, EIE of this ion has
been investigated experimentally and theoretically for a long time
(
Smith et al. 1985;
Chen et al. 2003;
Loch et al. 2006;
Beiersdorfer et al. 2002,2001 and
references therein).
Resonances in electron-ion impact excitation have been observed in
laboratory measurements (
Brown et al. 2006). They play an
important role in the spectral diagnostic and modelling of
astrophysical and laboratory plasmas. The close-coupling (CC)
approximation (e.g. R-matrix,
Hummer et al. 1993)
satisfactorily reproduces and describes such resonances. Recently,
there have been several works using this method for three ions in
this iso-electronic sequence.
Chen et al. (2003) performed
(BPRM) Breit-Pauli R-matrix (
Berrington et al. 1995)
calculations for Fe16+ with an 89 fine-structure level
close-coupling expansion (to n=4).
Loch et al. (2006)
performed a fully-relativistic larger scale Fe16+ calculation
(139 fine-structure levels, including an additional 50 levels of
the
configurations) using the Dirac atomic
R-matrix code ( DARC,
Norrington & Grant 1987).
Collisional-radiative (CR) modelling with their updated excitation
data was also undertaken (
Chen 2008;
Loch et al. 2006), the combination of which gives satisfactory
agreement between measurements/observations and theory for the
3C/3D line ratio. A benchmark work performed by
Del Zanna & Ishikawa (2009) revealed the data of
Loch et al. (2006) to be reliable.
Similar differences for other (non-iron) ions in this iso-electronic sequence
have been observed between measurements (
Beiersdorfer et al. 2001) and theoretical predictions based upon
distorted-wave (DW) excitation data. By making a semi-empirical
configuration-interaction (CI) correction to excitation data and
taking CR effects into account,
Fournier & Hansen (2005)
brought the predictions into agreement with measurements for
Ne-like ions from Cr14+ to Ag37+. This confirms again
that accurate atomic data is essential for the reliable diagnostic
modelling of astrophysical and laboratory plasmas. However, most
excitation data in this iso-electronic sequence are from the DW
approximation (
Zhang et al. 1987;
Bhatia et al. 1985), except for R-matrix calculations for three ions,
viz Fe16+ (BPRM and DARC, as noted above), Ni18+,
and Kr26+ (both DARC). For Ni18+,
Aggarwal & Keenan (2008) performed an 89-level CC (n=4,
,
,
and
)
calculation and
Chen et al. (2006) a
125-level (
,
,
and
)
CC calculation. For Kr26+,
Griffin et al. (2008) used a 139-level (n=5,
,
,
)
CC expansion;
they also demonstrated that the radiative damping of resonance
contributions is a small effect.
Due to the advantage of high accuracy - see
Griffin et al. (1998),
Badnell & Griffin (1999),
Berrington et al. (2005) and
Liang et al. (2008) - and
computational efficiency of the intermediate-coupling frame
transformation (ICFT) R-matrix methodology and associated codes,
along with the high capability of parallel computer clusters, it
is now feasible to provide excitation data for iso-electronic
sequences across the entire range of astrophysical interest within
the R-matrix framework.
Witthoeft et al. (2007)
investigated the physics of electron-impact excitation along the
F-like iso-electronic sequence (Ne+ to Kr27+) and
Liang et al. (2009a,b)
also did an entire sequence calculation
for Na-like ions (for both outer- and inner-shell excitations) with
Auger- and radiative-damping included for the inner-shell excitations.
Based upon the robustness of the current suite of R-matrix
codes, the R-matrix calculation of effective collision strengths
()
currently can be performed automatically for each ion
without manual intervention along an iso-electronic sequence after
sufficiently accurate radial wave functions have been obtained and
CI/CC expansions have been confirmed. This ensures that each
calculation is performed uniformly and reliably, as well as that
the calculation along the sequence is consistent. Careful analysis
of the results for several specified ions spanning the sequence is
still necessary so as to further validate the accuracy of the data
along the sequence.
In this paper, we report on the electron-impact excitation of the
Ne-like iso-electronic sequence (from Na+ to Kr26+), via
the ICFT R-matrix approach. In Sect. 2, we discuss details of
the calculation method and pay particular attention on comparing
our underlying atomic structure with previous results.
The excitation results themselves are discussed in Sect. 3. Our
work is a part of ongoing collaborative work - the UK Atomic
Processes for Astrophysical Plasmas (APAP)
network, a
broadening of scope of the original UK RmaX network.
2 Sequence calculation
The aim of this work is to perform R-matrix calculations
employing the ICFT method (see
Griffin et al. 1998) for
all Ne-like ions from Na+ to Kr26+. In our calculations
we included the following 31 configuration basis set in our
close-coupling expansion:
,
,
(
and
)
and
(
and
), and an additional 33 correlation
configuration -
(l and
and
)
in our CI expansion. This
results in 113 close-coupling LS terms and 209 fine-structure
levels. The CI expansion consists of 1337 LS terms and 2775
fine-structure levels, which were determined to be important for
improving the accuracy of the energy levels which we included in
the close-coupling expansion.
2.1 Structure: energies
The target wave functions (1s-7d) were obtained from
AUTOSTRUCTURE (AS,
Badnell 1986) using the
Thomas-Femi-Dirac-Amaldi model potential. Relativistic effects
were included perturbatively via the one-body Breit-Pauli
operator (viz. mass-velocity, spin-orbit and Darwin) without
valence electron two-body fine-structure operators. This is
consistent with the operators included in the standard Breit-Pauli
R-matrix suite of codes. The radial scaling parameters,
(n= 2 and 3;
and
), were
obtained separately for each ion by a two-step optimization
procedure with
.
In the first step,
the energy of the ground level
was minimized by varying the
and
scaling parameters. Then, the
average-energy of the fine-structure levels of the 14 terms of the
configuration was minimized by varying the
scaling parameters. This optimization
procedure was found to be the best common one that could be used
for all ions over the sequence. Optimizing the nl (n=4,5,6 and 7)
orbitals was found to give only a small improvement of the target level
energies for several specified ions (Si4+, Fe16+ and
Kr26+) spanning the sequence. In order to maintain
consistency and so as not to introduce arbitrary changes along the
sequence, the optimization procedure is done automatically in
AUTOSTRUCTURE without any manual re-adjustment. The resultant
scaling parameters are listed in Table 1.
Table 1:
Radial scaling factors used in AUTOSTRUCTURE to
minimize the total energies of
(2s and 2p
orbitals) and
(3l orbitals) complexes,
respectively - see text for details.
Table 2: The level energies (Ryd) of Si4+ from different calculations along with the compilation of NIST v32.
A comparison of level energies with previous calculations and
data, derived semi-empirically from experimental energies,
available from the compilation of NIST v3 or observed values available in the CHIANTI v6
database and astrophysical modelling code (
Dere et al. 2009) was made for several specific ions (Si4+,
Ar8+, Ca10+, Fe16+, Ni18+ and Kr26+)
spanning the sequence so as to assess the accuracy of our present
AS calculations over the entire iso-electronic series.
Tables 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, and 12
list various theoretical level energies along
with NIST (v3) derived or CHIANTI (v6) observed ones for the
60 lowest-lying levels. A fully relativistic calculation with the
Flexible Atomic Code (FAC, Gu 2008) was also performed for
these ions with only CI from
included
besides that of the CC configurations. This is because a
correction of level energies has been carried-out by using the
difference of average configuration energy obtained using a
different orbital basis for each configuration and that obtained
using the unique orbital basis required for multiconfiguration
level structure - see
Gu (2008) and the FAC manual for
details. Such a procedure is not readily usable in an R-matrix
calculation. A complete comparison with available NIST
experimentally derived or CHIANTI observed data is shown in
Fig. 1. A complete set of level energies from the
present AS calculation is available
electronically
. Figure 1 and
Tables 2, 4,
6, 8, 10, and
12 show that excellent agreement (within 0.5%)
is obtained when compared with NIST derived or CHIANTI observed
data except for a few energy levels. Moreover, better agreement
(0.3%) is obtained for Si4+, Ar8+, Fe16+,
Ni18+, etc.
For Si4+, the results of
Bhatia et al. (1985)
currently used by the CHIANTI are lower than the NIST
data by 1.5%-2.3%. The results from multiconfiguration
Hartree-Fock (MCHF) or multiconfiguration Dirac-Fock (MCDF) method
available from the MCHF/MCDF
Collection show excellent agreement with the NIST data. For
Ar8+, Ca10+ and Ni18+, the calculation of
Zhang et al. (1987) was adopted by CHIANTI, showing the same
level of accuracy with the present AS calculation. For Fe16+,
the present AS data is systematically higher than that of
Landi & Gu (2006)
used by CHIANTI by
0.4%. However, both show a
better level of accuracy (0.2%) when compared with NIST
data. Calculations with the MCDF method have been done
for highly charged ions, e.g. Fe16+ (
Aggarwal et al. 2003), Ni18+ (
Aggarwal & Keenan 2006) and Kr26+ (
Griffin et al. 2008) recently. When compared
with them, the present AS data agrees also to within 0.4%. This
means that our atomic structure is accurate, and the target
expansion of 31 spectroscopic configurations and additional 33
correlation configurations in scattering calculation is reliable
along the Ne-like iso-electronic sequence.
2.2 Structure: weighted oscillator strength
A further test of our structure calculations is to compare weighted oscillator strengths ( gifi,j for a given
Table 3: Comparison of the weighted oscillator strength gf between the AS and other calculations for Si4+.
For Si4+, around 68% of transitions available from the CHIANTI v6 database (
Dere et al. 2009) show agreement to within 20% between the
present AS calculations and the results of
Bhatia et al. (1985). There are about 56% of all-type transitions
(this refers to dipole and quadrupole) showing
with
(gfV and
gfL are weighted oscillator strengths in velocity and length
gauges, respectively). As shown in Table 3, the
present AS calculation also shows good agreement with the results
of our FAC calculations and the MCHF ones4.
Table 4: The level energies (Ryd) of Ar8+ from different calculations along with the compilation of NIST v3 and CHIANTI v6.
![]() |
Figure 1: Comparison of the level energies between the theoretical calculations and the ``experimental'' data available from NIST or CHIANTI databases. Level index refers to the ID number listed in Tables 2: Si4+; 4: Ar8+; 6: Ca10+; 8: Fe16+; 10: Ni18+, and 12: Kr26+. Labels in each panel corresponds to explanation in Tables of 2,4, 8, 10, and 12, respectively. [ Colour online] |
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For Ar8+, our AS agreement is within 20% when compared with
that of
Zhang et al. (1987) for 70% of their transitions.
The percentage of all-type transition increases up to 78% with
for this ion. As shown in Table
5, our AS results also show good agreement when
compared with the results of FAC and MCHF calculations.
For Ca10+, there are about 76% of transitions with a gfdifference within 20% when compared with the data of Zhang et al. (1987). The difference of the present AS gf-values between the velocity and length gauges is also within 20% for 78% of all-type transitions. The comparison with results from the FAC and MCHF methods also shows good agreement, see Table 7.
For Fe16+, there are about 80% of all-type transitions with
.
The percentage is 67% of all
available transitions from CHIANTI v6 (
Dere et al. 2009)
with a difference within 20% when compared with those of
Landi & Gu (2006). In comparison with results of
Aggarwal et al. (2003) from the MCDF method, the percentage is 65%.
For the two key transition lines (3C and 3D), the present AS
calculations (2.43 and
)
are slightly lower
than the results (2.49 and
)
of
Loch et al. 2006) by 2% and 7%, respectively, while those from
Chen et al. (2003) obtained from SUPERSTRUCTURE
(3C-2.57, 3D-
)
and by
Landi & Gu (2006) using FAC (3C-2.52, 3D-
)
and the present FAC calculation are also within 7%. When
pseudo-states were included by
Chen (2007) using
GRASP2, it results in a slightly larger difference
of
12% (3C-2.27,
3D-
).
Table 5: Comparison of the weighted oscillator strength gf between the AS and other calculations for Ar8+.
For Ni18+, there are about 81% of all-type transitions
showing
.
When compared with results
of
Aggarwal & Keenan (2006), 68% of electric-dipole
transitions show agreement to within 20%. The present
AUTOSTRUCTURE calculations show better agreement with those
from FAC (83% of transitions) and the data of
Zhang et al. (1987), as currently used by CHIANTI v6 (91% of
transitions).
For Kr26+, the present results also show good agreement with previous calculations obtained using the MCDF method: Griffin et al. (2008), Rice et al. (2000) and Zhang et al. (1987), see Table 13. The ratio between the present AS gf in length and velocity gauges is within 20% of unity for 72% of all-type transitions. For the 3C and 3Dlines, the present AS results are in close agreement Griffin et al's data (to within 3%).
Table 6: The level energies (Ryd) of Ca10+ from different calculations along with experimental data compiled in CHIANTI v6.
Thus, we believe that the atomic structure of the ions spanning the sequence is reliable, and expect uncertainty on collision strengths from target structure to be small.
3 Scattering
The scattering calculations were performed using a suite of
parallel intermediate-coupling frame transformation R-matrix
codes (
Griffin et al. 1998). Due to the large size of the
R-matrix ``box'' (due to the 7d orbital included), we employed 60
basis orbitals to represent the (N+1)th-electron
continuum per angular momentum for most ions over the sequence.
For lower charged ions, the basis orbitals are increased, e.g. 65
for Si4+ and P5+, 75 for Al3+, 85 for Mg2+and 95 for Na+. All partial waves from J=1/2 to 81/2 were
included explicitly and contributions from higher J-values were
included using a ``top-up'' procedure (
Burgess 1974;
Badnell & Griffin 2001). The contributions from partial waves up to
J=23/2 were included in the exchange R-matrix calculation,
while those from J=25/2 to 81/2 were included via a
non-exchange R-matrix calculation. For the exchange calculation, a
fine energy mesh was used to resolve the dominant
resonances below the highest excitation threshold, see
Table 14. From just above the highest threshold
excitation to a maximum energy of 3.0 times the ionization
potential for each ion, a coarse energy mesh
(2.0
Ryd, q=Z-10 is the residual charge of
ion) was employed. For the non-exchange calculation, a step of
2.0
Ryd was used over the entire energy range.
Witthoeft et al. (2007) tested the convergence of the
effective strengths (
)
with respect to resonance
resolutions for several ions spanning the F-like sequence - we
adopt the recommended energy meshes of
Witthoeft et al. (2007) or better ones, see Table 14.
We then used the infinite energy Born limits (non-dipole allowed)
and line-strengths (dipole-allowed) from AUTOSTRUCTURE so
that higher energy reduced collision strengths (), as
defined by
Burgess & Tully (1992), can be found from
interpolation in Burgess-Tully space for all additional higher
energies. The effective collision strengths at 13 electron
temperatures ranging from
K to
2
K (q is the residual charge of the ion,
that is Z-10), are produced as the end product. The data were
stored in the ADAS adf04 format (
Summers 2004).
4 Results and discussions
4.1 Comparison with previous calculations
We compare the present ICFT R-matrix results with those of
previous works (DW and/or R-matrix) for three ions (Si4+,
Fe16+ and Kr26+) which span the calculated data for this
iso-electronic sequence. Here, we select the extensively studied
transition line 3D as a sensitive test of the accuracy of the
present ICFT R-matrix calculation, and give special attention to
the cosmic abundant ion-Fe16+. (The 3C line is less
sensitive to the collision method because its excitation is more
strongly non-resonant, but we show a comparison with experiment
for Fe16+ along with 3D.) An extensive comparison (all
available excitation data from ground state
)
between the present ICFT R-matrix and previous
calculations (with preference to data with resonances included)
has been made for the three ions to test widespread of accuracy of
the present ICFT R-matrix data.
-- Si4+ To our best knowledge, there is no
R-matrix data available. The DW data of
(Bhatia et al. 1985, with only ground and
configurations included) was extensively used by current modelling
codes, including CHIANTI v6. For the 3D line as shown in
Fig. 2, the data from the DW calculations (
Bhatia et al. (1985) at
eV, and the present FAC
calculation) agrees with the background cross-section (
)
of the present ICFT R-matrix calculation to within 20%. Below
the electron energy of
eV, the data of FAC is
slightly higher than the background of the present ICFT R-matrix
calculation. At low temperatures
K, the
present ICFT
is higher than that of
Bhatia et al. (1985) by
80%, however, it is in agreement with
the FAC calculation. At the temperature (
K) with peak abundance in ionization equilibrium
(
Mazzotta et al. 1998;
Bryans et al. 2006);
Bhatia et al.'s data is lower than the present ICFT data by
40%.
The FAC result shows an excellent agreement with the present ICFT
result. Above the temperature of
K, the
difference between the present
and the result of
Bhatia et al. (1985) is about
45%. This is higher than the
general assessment criteria for the 3D transition as in cases of
Fe16+ and Kr26+ discussed at following. This discrepancy
at high temperatures is due to lower cross-sections from the DW
calculation at high energies where the line strength (S)
dominates the cross-section. This is consistent with the
difference of the collision strength limit-
4gf/Eij=4S/3 for
this transition (AS:
;
FAC:
;
Bhatia et al. 1985:
,
MCHF4:
,
see
Table 3). The present AS calculation is within the
range of the low (FAC) and high (MCHF) cases. Moreover, the
excellent agreement of level energies between the present
AUTOSTRUCTURE calculation and NIST data give more confidence to
the present ICFT R-matrix calculation.
Table 7: Comparison of the weighted oscillator strength gf between the AS and other calculations for Ca10+.
An extensive comparison with the results of
Bhatia et al. (1985) is made in Fig. 3. At
a low temperature of
K, all available
excitation data (DW) of
Bhatia et al. (1985) from the ground
state is lower than the present ICFT R-matrix calculation, and only
4% of them are within 20%. At the temperature (
K)
of peak fractional abundance in ionization equilibrium (
Mazzotta et al. 1998;
Bryans et al. 2006), the percentage
increases to 19%. At a high temperature of
K, 50% of excitations from the ground state
show agreement to within 20%.
Table 8: The level energies (Ryd) of Fe16+ from different calculations along with the compilation of NIST v3.
Table 9: Comparison of the weighted oscillator strength gf between the AS and other calculations for Fe16+.
-- Fe16+ Many calculations have been done
with resonances taken into account, such as the serial work of
Chen et al.
(2003, 2006), Chen (2007),
Aggarwal et al. (2003),
Loch et al. (2006), and
Landi & Gu (2006). In Fig. 4, we present the
comparison of cross-sections and effective collision strengths
with previous available data, for the 3D-excitation
(1-23). In the work of
Loch et al. (2006), a finer energy
mesh of about 10 times present case was employed to test the
convergence of the
relative to the resolution of
resonances. They concluded that the effect is quite small when
compared with their results obtained with a coarser energy mesh
(20 000 points in the resonance region, comparable to our present ICFT
R-matrix calculation). Good agreement is obtained between the
present results and those of Loch et al. for the background
cross-section (e.g.
10% at an electron energy of 1100 eV).
The cross-section convoluted by a Gaussian profile (a width of
30 eV, comparable with resolution of present detectors in the
laboratory) also shows agreement except for that around energies
of 870 eV. At energies of 910 eV and 964 eV, the present ICFT
R-matrix results show a better agreement (6% and 19%) with
laboratory measurement (
Brown et al. 2006) than results of
Chen (
2007, 24% and 28%) and Loch et al. (2006,
26% and 33%). This results in a slightly lower
than
previous results, see Fig. 4-b. An isolated
resonance approximation has been employed by
Landi & Gu (2006) to take the resonances in electron-impact
excitation into account. However, their
at lower
temperatures (
K) is far above that from
the present calculation, by up to 30% around
K. At higher temperatures, their
results show good agreement with Chen's and Loch et al.'s data, as
well as the present ICFT R-matrix calculations (to within 10%).
Landi & Gu (2006) data is currently used by the
astrophysical modelling code-CHIANTI v6. Over the entire
temperature range, the Dirac R-matrix calculation of
Loch et al. (2006) is slightly higher than the present ICFT
R-matrix calculation, by about 7%, which is consistent with the
difference level of atomic structure, e.g. the gf-value
discussed above in Sect. 2.2.
Table 10: The level energies (Ryd) of Ni18+ from different calculations along with the compilation of NIST v3.
Table 11: Comparison of the weighted oscillator strength gf between the AS and other calculations for Ni18+.
Table 12: The level energies (Ryd) of Kr26+ from different calculations along with the compilation of NIST v3.
For the stronger 3C excitation (1-27), see
Fig. 5, the present ICFT R-matrix results
agree well (better than 5%) with those from the DARC
calculation performed by
Loch et al. (2006) at the
energies of 910 and 964 eV. Both are higher than the measurement
(
Brown et al. 2006) by 35%. For the DARC
calculation of
Chen (2007), the difference drops to about
20% when compared with experimental data. This mirrors the
reduction in his reported A-values, and the weighted oscillator
strengths shown above, due to the inclusion of target
pseudo-states - a similar effect was noted by
Fournier & Hansen (2005). The present result is also in agreement
(8%) with that reported by
Aggarwal et al. (2003), see
the point at
eV. The resulting effective collision
strengths also show good agreement (about 7%) between the present
results and the BPRM of
Chen et al. (2003) and DARC
of
Loch et al. (2006) over temperatures of equilibrium
abundance for Fe16+. With decreasing electron temperature,
the difference between the present results and the DW plus
isolated resonance results of
Landi & Gu (2006) increases,
but is still less than 20% at
K. The
DARC results of
Chen (2007) are slightly lower than
the present ones, by about 10%.
A complete set of data for Fe16+ for the work of
Loch et al. (2006) is available from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory
(ORNL) Controlled Fusion Atomic Data Center
(CFADC)
and for
Landi & Gu (2006) from CHIANTI v6. Thus, we make
an extensive comparison (all excitation data from ground state
)
with them at low (
K),
intermediate (4.0
K) and high (
K)
temperatures, see Fig. 6.
![]() |
Figure 2:
Comparison of the
collision cross-section and |
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![]() |
Figure 3:
An extensive
comparison (all available excitations from the ground state) of
effective collision strength |
Open with DEXTER |
![]() |
Figure 4:
Comparison of the
collision cross-section and |
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![]() |
Figure 5:
Comparison of
the collision cross-section and |
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![]() |
Figure 6:
An extensive
comparison (all excitations from the ground state) of
effective collision strength |
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![]() |
Figure 7:
Comparison of the
collision cross-section and |
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-- Kr26+
Griffin et al. (2008) performed a
139-level R-matrix calculations using the
Dirac method. Two separate calculations were done: one with
radiation damping and one without. Figure 7 shows the cross-section (original and a
Gaussian convolution with a width of 30 eV) and a comparison of
between our present ICFT R-matrix result and that of
Griffin et al. (2008). Our original and convoluted
cross-section show good agreement with data of
Griffin et al. (2008), see Fig. 2-c in their work. The background agrees well with the DW calculation from
Bhatia et al. (1985) - see the point at
eV. The 27-level (
and
)
BPRM calculation of
Gupta et al. (2000) has
no resonances above
eV. Strong resonances attached
to the
and
configurations
appear, as demonstrated in the work of Griffin et al. (2008). The cross-section at
eV (derived by us from the collision strength given at
Ryd) of
Gupta et al. (2000)
agrees well with the background of present ICFT R-matrix calculation. The present resultant
is also consistent with the data of
Griffin et al. (2008)
both with and without radiative damping, being within 3% over the
entire temperature range. Good agreement is also found when compared
with Gupta et al.'s data.
Since a complete dataset of
of Dirac R-matrix data
(
Griffin et al. 2008) is available from the
CFADC7, we make an extensive comparison of
between the two different R-matrix datasets for
Kr26+, as shown in Fig. 8. At the low
temperature
K, 75% of excitations from
ground state show agreement of 20%. The percentage increases up
to 88% at the high temperature of
K.
![]() |
Figure 8:
An extensive
comparison (all excitations from the ground state) of effective
collision strength |
Open with DEXTER |
![]() |
Figure 9:
The level ordering
with the original level index (ID) relative to the ordering of
Fe16+ by mapping according to the good quantum number -
configuration, total angular momentum J and energy ordering for
ions spanning the entire sequence. The spikes and dips are due to
the shift of a given level, for example,
|
Open with DEXTER |
Griffin et al. (2008) made a statistical analysis of
over temperatures from
K to
K for 9591 transitions among 139 levels,
and found the average difference between the
with and
without damping to be 1.58%. As we know, radiative rates have a
dependence of q4 (where q is residual charge) for
transitions. In their Na-like iso-electronic sequence R-matrix
calculation,
Liang et al. (2009b) tested that the
radiative damping becomes dominant with increasing of ionic
charge. So, the radiative damping effect for the present ions of the
Ne-like iso-electronic sequence will be negligible. The present ICFT
R-matrix calculations without radiative damping are accurate
over the sequence in this respect.
From the above comparison for the three specified ions (Si4+,
Fe16+ and Kr26+) spanning the sequence, we believe that
the present ICFT R-matrix results (
and
)
have
the comparable level of accuracy with other R-matrix
calculations, including both Dirac and Breit-Pauli R-matrix
methods. Except for Fe, Ni and Kr, the present results are the
only R-matrix ones, to-date. For ions near neutral (below
Si4+), R-matrix with pseudostates calculations are likely
needed to model ionization loss, but the present are the best data
available, to-date.
4.2 Iso-electronic trends of
s
As noted in the work of
Witthoeft et al. (2007), the level
mixing effect for higher excited levels strongly affects the
behaviour of the
along the sequence. Similar
level-ordering cross was identified by
Liang et al. (2009b) in R-matrix EIE calculation of Na-like
iso-electronic sequence.
Witthoeft & Badnell (2008) and
Liang et al. (2009b) noticed that taking configuration,
total angular momentum J and energy ordering as good quantum
number is a better choice for level matching in comparison between
two different calculations and investigation of
along
the iso-electronic sequence. We find this to be true again, and map
all ions relative to the level ordering of Fe16+ in the following
discussion, see Fig. 9. This satisfactorily
eliminates uncertainty originating from the non-continuity of
level-ordering along the sequence. The choice of reference ion, Fe
here, is of course irrelevant.
In Fig. 10, we show effective collision
strength
at
,
104(q+1)2 and
105(q+1)2 K along the sequence for four dominant and strong
transition lines in Ne-like ions:
,
(see
Fig. 10a) and
and
(see
Fig. 10b). At the low temperature of
103(q+1)2 K, spikes and/or dips are observed along the
sequence for the
transitions. However,there are
no clear spikes and/or dips for
transitions. As
pointed out by
Witthoeft et al. (2007), such spikes/dips
along the iso-electronic sequence at low temperature are due to
the steady shifting of groups of resonances. This indirectly
indicates that resonances are more important for the
transitions than for the
transitions.
With increasing temperature, the spikes and/or dips disappear, as
expected, because the resonance contribution becomes weaker and
eventually negligible. For the 3D transition line, the
increases again below Z=15 at the high temperature of
105(q+1)2 K. This is due to the high-energy collision
strengths that are proportional to
,
as discussed for
Si4+ for this transition line.
![]() |
Figure 10:
Effective collision
strength ( |
Open with DEXTER |
5 Summary
We have performed 209-level ICFT R-matrix calculations of electron impact excitations with extensive configuration interaction (1337 LS terms or 2775 fine-structure levels) for all ions of the Ne-like iso-electronic sequence from Na+ to Kr26+. The present work is the most extensive and complete R-matrix data for modelling, to-date.
Good agreement with the available NIST v3 experimentally derived
or CHIANTI v6 observed data and the results of others for level
energies and gf-values for six specific ions (Si4+,
Ar8+, Ca10+, Fe16+, Ni18+ and Kr26+)
spanning the iso-electronic sequence supports the reliability of
the present R-matrix excitation data. This was confirmed
specifically, by detailed comparisons of /
and
for Si4+, Fe16+ and Kr26+.
The comparison (in the cases of Fe16+ and Kr26+) with
calculations using fully relativistic Dirac R-matrix method
reveals that present excitation data from ICFT R-matrix shows
the same level of accuracy. Excellent agreement of atomic
structure for lower charged ions, e.g. Si4+, gives us insight that
the present excitation data is better than previous data (from the DW
approximation) extensively used by the astrophysical and spectroscopic
communities. It is noted that the isolated resonance approach appears to
underestimate the resonant enhancement of
for the majority of
excitations in the case of Fe16+.
By excluding the level crossing effects on the ,
we
examined the iso-electronic trends of the effective collision
strengths. A complicated pattern of spikes and dips of
at low temperatures was noted again along the sequence, which
precludes interpolation in Z. With increasing temperature, the
difference between the present ICFT R-matrix and previous DW
results decreases as expected.
The data are made available through archives
of the APAP website 1 in the ADAS adf04 format
(
Summers 2004), OPEN-ADAS 3 and
CHIANTI.
Table 13: Comparison of the weighted oscillator strength gf between the AS and other calculations for Kr26+.
Table 14: The energy meshes (in unit of q2, residual charge of ion) used for each ion.
In conclusion, we have generated an extensive set of reliable excitation data utilizing the ICFT R-matrix method for spectroscopy/diagnostic research within the astrophysical and fusion communities. This will replace data from DW and isolated resonance approaches presently used by these communities, for most ions, and its use can be expected to identify new lines and may overcome some shortcomings in present astrophysical modelling, as seen previously for Mg8+ ( Del Zanna 2008), Fe6+ and Fe7+ ( Del Zanna 2009b,a), and Si9+ (Liang et al. 2009c).
AcknowledgementsThe work of the UK APAP Network is funded by the UK STFC under grant no. PP/E001254/1 with the University of Strathclyde. G.Y.L. thanks H. E. Mason, G. Del Zanna, P. J. Storey and K. A. Berrington for some helpful discussions.
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Footnotes
- ... sequence
- These data are made available in the archives of APAP via http://www.apap-network.org, OPEN-ADAS via http://open.adas.ac.uk as well as anonymous ftp to cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr (130.79.128.5) or via http://cdsweb.u-strasbg.fr/cgi-bin/qcat?J/A+A/518/A64
- ...
network
- http://www.apap-network.org
- ... NIST v3
- http://physics.nist.gov/PhysRefData/ASD/index.html
- ...
electronically
- http://open.adas.ac.uk/
- ...
Collection
- http://atoms.vuse.vanderbilt.edu/
- ... available
- The percentage refers to the fraction of transitions from the 5 lowest-lying levels to all upper states contained within the cited references.
- ... difference
- The MCDF level energies of Chen et al. (2003) and the A-values of Chen (2007) are used to derive the gf-values listed here.
- ...
(CFADC)
- http://www-cfadc.phy.ornl.gov/
- ...
CHIANTI
- http://www.chianti.rl.ac.uk/
All Tables
Table 1:
Radial scaling factors used in AUTOSTRUCTURE to
minimize the total energies of
(2s and 2p
orbitals) and
(3l orbitals) complexes,
respectively - see text for details.
Table 2: The level energies (Ryd) of Si4+ from different calculations along with the compilation of NIST v32.
Table 3: Comparison of the weighted oscillator strength gf between the AS and other calculations for Si4+.
Table 4: The level energies (Ryd) of Ar8+ from different calculations along with the compilation of NIST v3 and CHIANTI v6.
Table 5: Comparison of the weighted oscillator strength gf between the AS and other calculations for Ar8+.
Table 6: The level energies (Ryd) of Ca10+ from different calculations along with experimental data compiled in CHIANTI v6.
Table 7: Comparison of the weighted oscillator strength gf between the AS and other calculations for Ca10+.
Table 8: The level energies (Ryd) of Fe16+ from different calculations along with the compilation of NIST v3.
Table 9: Comparison of the weighted oscillator strength gf between the AS and other calculations for Fe16+.
Table 10: The level energies (Ryd) of Ni18+ from different calculations along with the compilation of NIST v3.
Table 11: Comparison of the weighted oscillator strength gf between the AS and other calculations for Ni18+.
Table 12: The level energies (Ryd) of Kr26+ from different calculations along with the compilation of NIST v3.
Table 13: Comparison of the weighted oscillator strength gf between the AS and other calculations for Kr26+.
Table 14: The energy meshes (in unit of q2, residual charge of ion) used for each ion.
All Figures
![]() |
Figure 1: Comparison of the level energies between the theoretical calculations and the ``experimental'' data available from NIST or CHIANTI databases. Level index refers to the ID number listed in Tables 2: Si4+; 4: Ar8+; 6: Ca10+; 8: Fe16+; 10: Ni18+, and 12: Kr26+. Labels in each panel corresponds to explanation in Tables of 2,4, 8, 10, and 12, respectively. [ Colour online] |
Open with DEXTER | |
In the text |
![]() |
Figure 2:
Comparison of the
collision cross-section and |
Open with DEXTER | |
In the text |
![]() |
Figure 3:
An extensive
comparison (all available excitations from the ground state) of
effective collision strength |
Open with DEXTER | |
In the text |
![]() |
Figure 4:
Comparison of the
collision cross-section and |
Open with DEXTER | |
In the text |
![]() |
Figure 5:
Comparison of
the collision cross-section and |
Open with DEXTER | |
In the text |
![]() |
Figure 6:
An extensive
comparison (all excitations from the ground state) of
effective collision strength |
Open with DEXTER | |
In the text |
![]() |
Figure 7:
Comparison of the
collision cross-section and |
Open with DEXTER | |
In the text |
![]() |
Figure 8:
An extensive
comparison (all excitations from the ground state) of effective
collision strength |
Open with DEXTER | |
In the text |
![]() |
Figure 9:
The level ordering
with the original level index (ID) relative to the ordering of
Fe16+ by mapping according to the good quantum number -
configuration, total angular momentum J and energy ordering for
ions spanning the entire sequence. The spikes and dips are due to
the shift of a given level, for example,
|
Open with DEXTER | |
In the text |
![]() |
Figure 10:
Effective collision
strength ( |
Open with DEXTER | |
In the text |
Copyright ESO 2010
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