Influence of plasma shielding effect on ground state and excited state energies of Ar16+

Abstract

A systematical knowledge of the atomic properties in plasma is of great interest for various research areas, such as the explanation of the X-ray radiation from universe, plasma diagnostics, extreme ultraviolet (EUV) and X-ray sources and so on. Among these researches, the detailed information about how the plasma influences the atomic energy level and transition spectrum are crucial for understanding the X-ray emission mechanism and the state of plasma. An analytic calculation method of treating the non-relativistic energy and its relativistic corrections for the multi-electron atoms embedded in weakly coupled plasma is developed based on the Rayleigh-Ritz variation method. The systematical investigations are performed for the ground state 1s² ¹S, single excited states 1sns ^1,2S (<i>n</i> = 2−5), 1s<i>n</i>p ^1,3P (<i>n</i> = 2−5) and double excited state 2s2p ¹P of Ar¹⁶⁺ ion in weak coupled plasma. The analytic formulas for calculating the non-relativistic energy and its relativistic correction energy are derived, which include mass correction, one and two-body Darwin correction, spin-spin contact interaction and orbit-orbit interaction. All the angular integration spin sums involved in the problem are worked out explicitly by using the irreducible theory. The influence of plasma on non-relativistic energy and relativistic correction energy are discussed. The results show that the mass correction and the one-body Darwin correction are the main ones among the terms of relativistic correction, and are three orders of magnitude greater than the other relativistic terms. The plasma shielding effect mainly affects the non-relativistic energy, and has little effect on the relativistic correction. At the same time, it has a more significant selectivity for the electronic configuration. Further research shows that the influence of plasma on the energy of the outer shell electron is greater than that of the inner shell electron. With the increase of the plasma shielding parameters, the outer shell electron extends outward, and the higher the excited state, the greater the degree of extension is. This work should be useful for astrophysical applications where such a plasma environment exists.