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Stark broadening of isolated ion lines by plasmas

'!'his study focuses on the development and the evaluation of a practical Stark broadening calculation of isolated ion line widths by Hey. In particular, emission profiles produced by optically thin plasma sources are considered. Despite the development of the fully quantum mechanical theory in the...

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Main Author: Breger, Peter
Other Authors: Dr. John Hey
Format: Thesis
Language:English
Published: Department of Physics 2024
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access_status_str Open Access
author Breger, Peter
author2 Dr. John Hey
author_browse Breger, Peter
Dr. John Hey
author_facet Dr. John Hey
Breger, Peter
author_sort Breger, Peter
collection Thesis
description '!'his study focuses on the development and the evaluation of a practical Stark broadening calculation of isolated ion line widths by Hey. In particular, emission profiles produced by optically thin plasma sources are considered. Despite the development of the fully quantum mechanical theory in the impact regime by Baranger, the semi-empirical and semi-classical approximations by Griem have been widely used in the practical prediction of widths of isolated lines. Hhereas these approximations achieved fair success for singlyionised emitters, discrepancies have been widely reported in the application to the more highly-ionised species. In order to make use of the advantages offered by the classical path approximation, a new derivation of the effective Gaunt factor appearing in the excitation crosssections has been carried out. In particular, this function is derived with proper allowance for curvature of the electron (perturber) orbit. Careful examination of the restrictions on a classical path approximation is seen to lead to a Gaunt factor based in spirit on the approach used by Griem, but achieving a continuity as a function of energy for all abovethreshold energies, as well as a reduction to the correct limiting behaviour at high energies (Bethe approximation). The extension of the Gaunt factor into the below-threshold energy regime for inclusion of elastic contributions to the broadening is thus facilitated and two methods of achieving this are discussed. ii Apart from this major change required in order to deal with the spectra emitted by ions of ionisation stage Z ~ 2, it is found that the radiator structure of the emitter plays an important role in the line broadening. Details of the radiator structure required for application of the LS coupling scheme, such as configuration interaction and equivalent electron configurations, are therefore taken into account where necessary. 'rhe derived theory is presented together with its properties and applied to spectral lines of a wide range of ion emitters, namely SnII, OII, OIII, SIII, SIV, AIII, AIV, NIII, NIV, ClIII, FII, CIII. The agreement obtained between theory and experiment is compared with results reported by various authors. Furthermore, attention is paid to the tre nds and regularities in Stark broadening parameters for iso-electronic and homologous ions, as well as variations with in multiplets. 'rhe presented theory is found to yield good agreement for ions of 2 4 Z < 5, compares very favourably with some other theoretical approaches in most cases, and is seen to succeed in the improvement of present calculational method
format Thesis
id oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/40251
institution University of Cape Town (South Africa)
language eng
last_indexed 2026-06-10T12:38:22.140Z
license_str Not specified — see source repository
provenance_str_mv Harvested via OAI-PMH from UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
publishDate 2024
publishDateRange 2024
publishDateSort 2024
publisher Department of Physics
publisherStr Department of Physics
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source_str UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
spelling oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/40251 Stark broadening of isolated ion lines by plasmas Breger, Peter Dr. John Hey Physics '!'his study focuses on the development and the evaluation of a practical Stark broadening calculation of isolated ion line widths by Hey. In particular, emission profiles produced by optically thin plasma sources are considered. Despite the development of the fully quantum mechanical theory in the impact regime by Baranger, the semi-empirical and semi-classical approximations by Griem have been widely used in the practical prediction of widths of isolated lines. Hhereas these approximations achieved fair success for singlyionised emitters, discrepancies have been widely reported in the application to the more highly-ionised species. In order to make use of the advantages offered by the classical path approximation, a new derivation of the effective Gaunt factor appearing in the excitation crosssections has been carried out. In particular, this function is derived with proper allowance for curvature of the electron (perturber) orbit. Careful examination of the restrictions on a classical path approximation is seen to lead to a Gaunt factor based in spirit on the approach used by Griem, but achieving a continuity as a function of energy for all abovethreshold energies, as well as a reduction to the correct limiting behaviour at high energies (Bethe approximation). The extension of the Gaunt factor into the below-threshold energy regime for inclusion of elastic contributions to the broadening is thus facilitated and two methods of achieving this are discussed. ii Apart from this major change required in order to deal with the spectra emitted by ions of ionisation stage Z ~ 2, it is found that the radiator structure of the emitter plays an important role in the line broadening. Details of the radiator structure required for application of the LS coupling scheme, such as configuration interaction and equivalent electron configurations, are therefore taken into account where necessary. 'rhe derived theory is presented together with its properties and applied to spectral lines of a wide range of ion emitters, namely SnII, OII, OIII, SIII, SIV, AIII, AIV, NIII, NIV, ClIII, FII, CIII. The agreement obtained between theory and experiment is compared with results reported by various authors. Furthermore, attention is paid to the tre nds and regularities in Stark broadening parameters for iso-electronic and homologous ions, as well as variations with in multiplets. 'rhe presented theory is found to yield good agreement for ions of 2 4 Z < 5, compares very favourably with some other theoretical approaches in most cases, and is seen to succeed in the improvement of present calculational method 2024-07-02T10:33:42Z 2024-07-02T10:33:42Z 1980 2024-06-25T11:47:00Z Thesis / Dissertation Masters Masters http://hdl.handle.net/11427/40251 eng application/pdf Department of Physics Faculty of Science
spellingShingle Physics
Breger, Peter
Stark broadening of isolated ion lines by plasmas
thesis_degree_str Master's
title Stark broadening of isolated ion lines by plasmas
title_full Stark broadening of isolated ion lines by plasmas
title_fullStr Stark broadening of isolated ion lines by plasmas
title_full_unstemmed Stark broadening of isolated ion lines by plasmas
title_short Stark broadening of isolated ion lines by plasmas
title_sort stark broadening of isolated ion lines by plasmas
topic Physics
url http://hdl.handle.net/11427/40251
work_keys_str_mv AT bregerpeter starkbroadeningofisolatedionlinesbyplasmas