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Full-Text Articles in Physics

Atomic Data For S Ii—Toward Better Diagnostics Of Chemical Evolution In High-Redshift Galaxies, Romas Kisielius, Varsha P. Kulkarni, Gary J. Ferland, Pavel Bogdanovich, Matt L. Lykins Dec 2013

Atomic Data For S Ii—Toward Better Diagnostics Of Chemical Evolution In High-Redshift Galaxies, Romas Kisielius, Varsha P. Kulkarni, Gary J. Ferland, Pavel Bogdanovich, Matt L. Lykins

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

Absorption-line spectroscopy is a powerful tool used to estimate element abundances in both the nearby and distant universe. The accuracy of the abundances thus derived is naturally limited by the accuracy of the atomic data assumed for the spectral lines. We have recently started a project to perform new extensive atomic data calculations used for optical/UV spectral lines in the plasma modeling code Cloudy using state of the art quantal calculations. Here, we demonstrate our approach by focussing on S II, an ion used to estimate metallicities for Milky Way interstellar clouds as well as distant damped Lyman-alpha (DLA) and …


Effects Of External Radiation Fields On Line Emission—Application To Star-Forming Regions, Marios Chatzikos, Gary J. Ferland, R. J. R. Williams, Ryan Porter, P. A. M. Vanhoof Dec 2013

Effects Of External Radiation Fields On Line Emission—Application To Star-Forming Regions, Marios Chatzikos, Gary J. Ferland, R. J. R. Williams, Ryan Porter, P. A. M. Vanhoof

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

A variety of astronomical environments contain clouds irradiated by a combination of isotropic and beamed radiation fields. For example, molecular clouds may be irradiated by the isotropic cosmic microwave background, as well as by a nearby active galactic nucleus. These radiation fields excite atoms and molecules and produce emission in different ways. We revisit the escape probability theorem and derive a novel expression that accounts for the presence of external radiation fields. We show that when the field is isotropic the escape probability is reduced relative to that in the absence of external radiation. This is in agreement with previous …


High Precision K-Shell Photoabsorption Cross Sections For Atomic Oxygen: Experiment And Theory, Brendan M. Mclaughlin, C P. Ballance, K P. Bowen, D J. Gardenghi, Wayne C. Stolte Jun 2013

High Precision K-Shell Photoabsorption Cross Sections For Atomic Oxygen: Experiment And Theory, Brendan M. Mclaughlin, C P. Ballance, K P. Bowen, D J. Gardenghi, Wayne C. Stolte

Wayne C. Stolte

Photoabsorption of atomic oxygen in the energy region below the 1s −1 threshold in X-ray spectroscopy from Chandra and XMM-Newton is observed in a variety of X-ray binary spectra. Photoabsorption cross sections determined from an R-matrix method with pseudo-states and new, high precision measurements from the Advanced Light Source (ALS) are presented. High-resolution spectroscopy with E/ΔE ≈ 4250 ± 400 was obtained for photon energies from 520 eV to 555 eV at an energy resolution of 124 ± 12 meV FWHM. K-shell photoabsorption cross section measurements were made with a re-analysis of previous experimental data on atomic oxygen at the …


Suppression Of Dielectronic Recombination Due To Finite Density Effects, D. Nikolić, T. W. Gorczyca, K. T. Korista, Gary J. Ferland, N. R. Badnell Apr 2013

Suppression Of Dielectronic Recombination Due To Finite Density Effects, D. Nikolić, T. W. Gorczyca, K. T. Korista, Gary J. Ferland, N. R. Badnell

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

We have developed a general model for determining density-dependent effective dielectronic recombination (DR) rate coefficients in order to explore finite-density effects on the ionization balance of plasmas. Our model consists of multiplying by a suppression factor those highly-accurate total zero-density DR rate coefficients which have been produced from state-of-the-art theoretical calculations and which have been benchmarked by experiment. The suppression factor is based upon earlier detailed collision-radiative calculations which were made for a wide range of ions at various densities and temperatures, but used a simplified treatment of DR. A general suppression formula is then developed as a function of …