New Excitation and Ionization Mechanism of Ions in Dense Plasmas: The Role of Autoionizing States

摘要

It is shown that, in dense plasmas, dielectronic capture into doubly excited ionic states followed by the ladder like excitation ionization chain becomes important in the excitation ionization process of ions. For an example of a hydrogen like ion, its contribution to the excitation ls yields 2s, 2p as well as to the ionization was evaluated by the method of the quasisteady state solution to the rate equations. The increase is found to be substantial, i.e., by more than a factor of two both for the excitation and ionization rate coefficients.