Accurate determination of the free-free Gaunt factor. II - relativistic Gaunt factors

When modelling an ionised plasma, all spectral synthesis codes need the thermally averaged free-free Gaunt factor defined over a very wide range of parameter space in order to produce an accurate prediction for the spectrum. Until now no data set exists that would meet these needs completely. We have therefore produced a table of relativistic Gaunt factors over a much wider range of parameter space than has ever been produced before. We present tables of the thermally averaged Gaunt factor covering the range log10(gamma^2) = -6 to 10 and log10(u) = -16 to 13 for all atomic numbers Z = 1 through 36. The data were calculated using the relativistic Bethe-Heitler-Elwert (BHE) approximation and were subsequently merged with accurate non-relativistic results in those parts of the parameter space where the BHE approximation is not valid. These data will be incorporated in the next major release of the spectral synthesis code Cloudy. We also produced tables of the frequency integrated Gaunt factor covering the parameter space log10(gamma^2) = -6 to 10 for all values of Z between 1 and 36. All the data presented in this paper are available online.Comment: 8 pages, 8 figures, 2 table

Radiative cooling in collisionally and photo ionized plasmas

We discuss recent improvements in the calculation of the radiative cooling in both collisionally and photo ionized plasmas. We are extending the spectral simulation code Cloudy so that as much as possible of the underlying atomic data is taken from external databases, some created by others, some developed by the Cloudy team. This paper focuses on recent changes in the treatment of many stages of ionization of iron, and discusses its extensions to other elements. The H-like and He-like ions are treated in the iso-electronic approach described previously. Fe II is a special case treated with a large model atom. Here we focus on Fe III through Fe XXIV, ions which are important contributors to the radiative cooling of hot, 1e5 to 1e7 K, plasmas and for X-ray spectroscopy. We use the Chianti atomic database to greatly expand the number of transitions in the cooling function. Chianti only includes lines that have atomic data computed by sophisticated methods. This limits the line list to lower excitation, longer wavelength, transitions. We had previously included lines from the Opacity Project database, which tends to include higher energy, shorter wavelength, transitions. These were combined with various forms of the g-bar approximation, a highly approximate method of estimating collision rates. For several iron ions the two databases are almost entirely complementary. We adopt a hybrid approach in which we use Chianti where possible, supplemented by lines from the Opacity Project for shorter wavelength transitions. The total cooling including the lightest thirty elements differs significantly from some previous calculations

Accurate determination of the free-free Gaunt factor; I - non-relativistic Gaunt factors

Modern spectral synthesis codes need the thermally averaged free-free Gaunt factor defined over a very wide range of parameter space in order to produce an accurate prediction for the spectrum emitted by an ionized plasma. Until now no set of data exists that would meet this need in a fully satisfactory way. We have therefore undertaken to produce a table of very accurate non-relativistic Gaunt factors over a much wider range of parameters than has ever been produced before. We first produced a table of non-averaged Gaunt factors, covering the parameter space log10(epsilon_i) = -20 to +10 and log10(w) = -30 to +25. We then continued to produce a table of thermally averaged Gaunt factors covering the parameter space log10(gamma^2) = -6 to +10 and log10(u) = -16 to +13. Finally we produced a table of the frequency integrated Gaunt factor covering the parameter space log10(gamma^2) = -6 to +10. All the data presented in this paper are available online.Comment: 10 pages, 5 tables, 3 figures. Fixed typo in Eq. 1

Expanded Iron UTA spectra -- probing the thermal stability limits in AGN clouds

The Fe unresolved transition array (UTAs) produce prominent features in the 15-17?A wavelength range in the spectra of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN). Here we present new calculations of the energies and oscillator strengths of inner- shell lines from Fe XIV, Fe XV, and Fe XVI. These are crucial ions since they are dominant at inflection points in the gas thermal stability curve, and UTA excitation followed by autoionization is an important ionization mechanism for these species. We incorporate these, and data reported in previous papers, into the plasma simulation code Cloudy. This updated physics is subsequently employed to reconsider the thermally stable phases in absorbing media in Active Galactic Nuclei. We show how the absorption profile of the Fe XIV UTA depends on density, due to the changing populations of levels within the ground configuration.Comment: ApJ in pres

Radiative Cooling II: Effects of Density and Metallicity

This work follows Lykins et al. discussion of classic plasma cooling function at low density and solar metallicity. Here we focus on how the cooling function changes over a wide range of density (n_H<10^12 cm^(-3)) and metallicity (Z<30Z _sun ). We find that high densities enhance the ionization of elements such as hydrogen and helium until they reach local thermodynamic equilibrium. By charge transfer, the metallicity changes the ionization of hydrogen when it is partially ionized. We describe the total cooling function as a sum of four parts: those due to H&He, the heavy elements, electron-electron bremsstrahlung and grains. For the first 3 parts, we provide a low-density limit cooling function, a density dependence function, and a metallicity dependence function. These functions are given with numerical tables and analytical fit functions. For grain cooling, we only discuss in ISM case. We then obtain a total cooling function that depends on density, metallicity and temperature. As expected, collisional de-excitation suppresses the heavy elements cooling. Finally, we provide a function giving the electron fraction, which can be used to convert the cooling function into a cooling rate.Comment: Published by MNRAS, online tables can be found at http://mnras.oxfordjournals.org/content/suppl/2014/04/28/stu514.DC

Radiative Cooling in Collisionally Ionized and Photoionized Plasmas

We discuss recent improvements in the calculation of the radiative cooling in both collisionally ionized and photoionized plasmas. We are extending the spectral simulation code CLOUDY so that as much as possible of the underlying atomic data are taken from external data bases, some created by others and some developed by the CLOUDY team. This paper focuses on recent changes in the treatment of many stages of ionization of iron, and discusses its extensions to other elements. The H- and He-like ions are treated in the isoelectronic approach described previously. Fe II is a special case treated with a large model atom. Here we focus on Fe III through Fe XXIV, ions which are important contributors to the radiative cooling of hot (T ∼ 105–107 K) plasmas and for X-ray spectroscopy. We use the Chianti atomic data base to greatly expand the number of transitions in the cooling function. Chianti only includes lines that have atomic data computed by sophisticated methods. This limits the line list to lower excitation, longer wavelength, transitions. We had previously included lines from the Opacity Project data base, which tends to include higher energy, shorter wavelength, transitions. These were combined with various forms of the ‘g-bar’ approximation, a highly approximate method of estimating collision rates. For several iron ions the two data bases are almost entirely complementary. We adopt a hybrid approach in which we use Chianti where possible, supplemented by lines from the Opacity Project for shorter wavelength transitions. The total cooling including the lightest 30 elements differs from some previous calculations by significant amounts

Hydrogen Two-Photon Continuum Emission from the Horseshoe Filament in NGC 1275

Far ultraviolet emission has been detected from a knot of Halpha emission in the Horseshoe filament, far out in the NGC 1275 nebula. The flux detected relative to the brightness of the Halpha line in the same spatial region is very close to that expected from Hydrogen two-photon continuum emission in the particle heating model of Ferland et al. (2009) if reddening internal to the filaments is taken into account. We find no need to invoke other sources of far ultraviolet emission such as hot stars or emission lines from CIV in intermediate temperature gas to explain these data.Comment: 9 pages, 8 figures. Accepted for publication in MNRA

Sexual Attraction to Others: A Comparison of Two Models of Alloerotic Responding in Men

The penile response profiles of homosexual and heterosexual pedophiles, hebephiles, and teleiophiles to laboratory stimuli depicting male and female children and adults may be conceptualized as a series of overlapping stimulus generalization gradients. This study used such profile data to compare two models of alloerotic responding (sexual responding to other people) in men. The first model was based on the notion that men respond to a potential sexual object as a compound stimulus made up of an age component and a gender component. The second model was based on the notion that men respond to a potential sexual object as a gestalt, which they evaluate in terms of global similarity to other potential sexual objects. The analytic strategy was to compare the accuracy of these models in predicting a man’s penile response to each of his less arousing (nonpreferred) stimulus categories from his response to his most arousing (preferred) stimulus category. Both models based their predictions on the degree of dissimilarity between the preferred stimulus category and a given nonpreferred stimulus category, but each model used its own measure of dissimilarity. According to the first model (“summation model”), penile response should vary inversely as the sum of stimulus differences on separate dimensions of age and gender. According to the second model (“bipolar model”), penile response should vary inversely as the distance between stimulus categories on a single, bipolar dimension of morphological similarity—a dimension on which children are located near the middle, and adult men and women are located at opposite ends. The subjects were 2,278 male patients referred to a specialty clinic for phallometric assessment of their erotic preferences. Comparisons of goodness of fit to the observed data favored the unidimensional bipolar model

Implications of Coronal Line Emission in NGC 4696*

We announce a new facility in the spectral code cloudy that enables tracking the evolution of a cooling parcel of gas with time. For gas cooling from temperatures relevant to galaxy clusters, earlier calculations estimated the [Fe xiv] λ5303/[Fe x] λ6375 luminosity ratio, a critical diagnostic of a cooling plasma, to slightly less than unity. By contrast, our calculations predict a ratio of ∼3. We revisit recent optical coronal line observations along the X-ray cool arc around NGC 4696 by Canning et al., which detected [Fe x] λ6375, but not [Fe xiv] λ5303. We show that these observations are not consistent with predictions of cooling flow models. Differential extinction could in principle account for the observations, but it requires extinction levels (AV \u3e 3.625) incompatible with previous observations. The non-detection of [Fe xiv] implies a temperature ceiling of 2.1 million K. Assuming cylindrical geometry and transonic turbulent pressure support, we estimate the gas mass at ∼1 million M⊙. The coronal gas is cooling isochorically. We propose that the coronal gas has not condensed out of the intracluster medium, but instead is the conductive or mixing interface between the X-ray plume and the optical filaments. We present a number of emission lines that may be pursued to test this hypothesis and constrain the amount of intermediate-temperature gas in the system