Levels and rate coefficients of the Fe-L

DOI

A major challenge in X-ray spectral modeling is the Fe-L spectrum, which is basically a complex assembly of n>=3 to n=2 transitions of Fe ions in different ionization states, affected by a range of atomic processes such as collisional excitation, resonant excitation, radiative recombination, dielectronic recombination, and innershell ionization. In this paper we perform a large-scale theoretical calculation on each of the processes with the flexible atomic code (FAC), focusing on ions of FeXVII to FeXXIV that form the main body of the Fe-L complex. The calculation includes a large set of energy levels with a broad range of quantum number n and l, taking into account the full-order configuration interaction and all possible resonant channels between two neighboring ions. The new data are found to agree within 20% with the recent individual R-matrix calculations for the main FeL lines, although the discrepancies become significantly larger for the weaker transitions, in particular for FeXVIII, FeXIX, and FeXX. By further testing the new FAC calculations with the high-quality RGS data from 15 elliptical galaxies and galaxy clusters, we note that the new model gives systematically better fits than the current SPEX v3.04 code, and the mean Fe abundance decreases by 12%, while the O/Fe ratio increases by 16% compared with the results from the current code. Comparing the FAC fit results to those with the $R$-matrix calculations, we find a temperature-dependent discrepancy of up to 10% on the Fe abundance between the two theoretical models. Further dedicated tests with both observed spectra and targeted laboratory measurements are needed to resolve the discrepancies, and ultimately to get the atomic data ready for the next high-resolution X-ray spectroscopy mission.

Identifier
DOI http://doi.org/10.26093/cds/vizier.36270051
Source https://dc.g-vo.org/rr/q/lp/custom/CDS.VizieR/J/A+A/627/A51
Related Identifier https://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/cat/J/A+A/627/A51
Related Identifier http://vizier.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/VizieR-2?-source=J/A+A/627/A51
Metadata Access http://dc.g-vo.org/rr/q/pmh/pubreg.xml?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=oai_b2find&identifier=ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/A+A/627/A51
Provenance
Creator Gu L.; Raassen A.J.J.; Mao J.; de Plaa J.; Shah C.; Pinto C.; Werner N.,Simionescu A.; Mernier F.; Kaastra J.S.
Publisher CDS
Publication Year 2019
Rights https://cds.unistra.fr/vizier-org/licences_vizier.html
OpenAccess true
Contact CDS support team <cds-question(at)unistra.fr>
Representation
Resource Type Dataset; AstroObjects
Discipline Astrophysics and Astronomy; Interdisciplinary Astronomy; Natural Sciences; Physics