266 research outputs found
Photoionization of Co and electron-impact excitation of Co using the Dirac R-matrix method
Modelling of massive stars and supernovae (SNe) plays a crucial role in
understanding galaxies. From this modelling we can derive fundamental
constraints on stellar evolution, mass-loss processes, mixing, and the products
of nucleosynthesis. Proper account must be taken of all important processes
that populate and depopulate the levels (collisional excitation, de-excitation,
ionization, recombination, photoionization, bound-bound processes). For the
analysis of Type Ia SNe and core collapse SNe (Types Ib, Ic and II) Fe group
elements are particularly important. Unfortunately little data is currently
available and most noticeably absent are the photoionization cross-sections for
the Fe-peaks which have high abundances in SNe. Important interactions for both
photoionization and electron-impact excitation are calculated using the
relativistic Dirac Atomic -matrix Codes (DARC) for low ionization stages of
cobalt. All results are calculated up to photon energies of 45 eV and electron
energies up to 20 eV. The wavefunction representation of Co III has been
generated using GRASP0 by including the dominant 3d, 3d[4s, 4p],
3p3d and 3p3d configurations, resulting in 292 fine structure
levels. Electron-impact collision strengths and Maxwellian averaged effective
collision strengths across a wide range of astrophysically relevant
temperatures are computed for Co III. In addition, statistically weighted
level-resolved ground and metastable photoionization cross-sections are
presented for Co II and compared directly with existing work.Comment: 11 pages, 8 figures and 4 table
Dirac R-matrix calculations for the electron-impact excitation of neutral tungsten providing noninvasive diagnostics for magnetic confinement fusion
Neutral tungsten is the primary candidate as a wall material in the divertor
region of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER). The
efficient operation of ITER depends heavily on precise atomic physics
calculations for the determination of reliable erosion diagnostics, helping to
characterise the influx of tungsten impurities into the core plasma. The
following paper presents detailed calculations of the atomic structure of
neutral tungsten using the multiconfigurational Dirac-Fock method, drawing
comparisons with experimental measurements where available, and includes a
critical assessment of existing atomic structure data. We investigate the
electron-impact excitation of neutral tungsten using the Dirac R-matrix method
and, by employing collisional-radiative models, we benchmark our results with
recent Compact Toroidal Hybrid measurements. The resulting comparisons
highlight alternative diagnostic lines to the widely used 400.88nm line.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figure
Observations of the Crab Nebula and its pulsar in the far-ultraviolet and in the optical
We present HST/STIS far-UV observations of the Crab nebula and its pulsar.
Broad, blueshifted absorption arising in the nebula is seen in C IV 1550,
reaching about 2500 km/s. This can be interpreted as evidence for a fast outer
shell, and we adopt a spherically symmetric model to constrain the properties
of this. We find that the density appears to decrease outward in the shell. A
lower limit to the mass is 0.3 solar masses with an accompanying kinetic energy
of 1.5EE{49} ergs. A massive 10^{51} erg shell cannot be excluded, but is less
likely if the density profile is much steeper than R^{-4} and the velocity is
<6000 km/s. The observations cover the region 1140-1720 A. With the time-tag
mode of the spectrograph we obtain the pulse profile. It is similar to that in
the near-UV, although the primary peak is marginally narrower. Together with
the near-UV data, and new optical data from NOT, our spectrum of the pulsar
covers the entire region from 1140-9250 A. Dereddening the spectrum gives a
flat spectrum for E(B-V)=0.52, R=3.1. This dereddened spectrum of the Crab
pulsar can be fitted by a power law with spectral index alpha_{\nu} = 0.11 +/-
0.04. The main uncertainty is the amount and characteristics of the interstel-
lar reddening, and we have investigated the dependence of \alpha_{\nu} on
E(B-V) and R. In the extended emission covered by our 25" x 0.5" slit in the
far-UV, we detect C IV 1550 and He II 1640 emission lines from the Crab nebula.
Several interstellar absorption lines are detected toward the pulsar. The Ly
alpha absorption indicates a column density of 3.0+/-0.5\EE{21} cm^{-2} of
neutral hydrogen, which agrees well with our estimate of E(B-V)=0.52 mag. Other
lines show no evidence of severe depletion of metals in atomic gas.Comment: 18 pages emulateapj style, including 10 figures. ApJ, accepte
Monte Carlo radiative transfer for the nebular phase of Type Ia supernovae
We extend the range of validity of the ARTIS 3D radiative transfer code up to hundreds of days after explosion, when Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) are in their nebular phase. To achieve this, we add a non-local thermodynamic equilibrium population and ionization solver, a new multifrequency radiation field model, and a new atomic data set with forbidden transitions. We treat collisions with non-thermal leptons resulting from nuclear decays to account for their contribution to excitation, ionization, and heating. We validate our method with a variety of tests including comparing our synthetic nebular spectra for the well-known one-dimensional W7 model with the results of other studies. As an illustrative application of the code, we present synthetic nebular spectra for the detonation of a sub-Chandrasekhar white dwarf (WD) in which the possible effects of gravitational settling of 22Ne prior to explosion have been explored. Specifically, we compare synthetic nebular spectra for a 1.06 M☉ WD model obtained when 5.5 Gyr of very efficient settling is assumed to a similar model without settling. We find that this degree of 22Ne settling has only a modest effect on the resulting nebular spectra due to increased 58Ni abundance. Due to the high ionization in sub-Chandrasekhar models, the nebular [Ni II] emission remains negligible, while the [Ni III] line strengths are increased and the overall ionization balance is slightly lowered in the model with 22Ne settling. In common with previous studies of sub-Chandrasekhar models at nebular epochs, these models overproduce [Fe III] emission relative to [Fe II] in comparison to observations of normal SNe Ia
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