Abstract
The kinetics of the local population of atomic states (p) of ions of charge (z) in plasmas is governed by coupled rate equations of the type
whereRz (p→) andRz (→p) represent the sums of all rates of possible radiative and collisional transitions out of the level (p) and into the level, respectively, and Γz (p) is the external flux of level-p population by diffusion and convection. It is obvious, that a general solution is practically impossible not only because of the large number of transitions which have to be considered but also for the fact that for many transitions the probabilities and rate coefficients are not known with sufficient accuracy. It is therefore a common approach to reduce the number of rate equations to a set of tractable size by taking into account only the most relevant processes and by considering the pertinent time scales. These so-calledcollisional-radiative models may differ for different atomic and ionic species and certainly for molecules, and they depend on the regime of plasma parameters.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2009 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Kunze, HJ. (2009). Kinetics of the Population of Atomic Levels in Plasmas. In: Introduction to Plasma Spectroscopy. Springer Series on Atomic, Optical, and Plasma Physics, vol 56. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-02233-3_8
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-02233-3_8
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-02232-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-02233-3
eBook Packages: Physics and AstronomyPhysics and Astronomy (R0)