Ab initio dielectronic recombination rate coefficients for highly-charged Ar-like ions

Abstract

Employing the independent-processes isolated-resonance distorted-wave approximation, we have made a comprehensive study on dielectronic recombination (DR) for 19 highly-charged Ar-like ions with nuclear charge number Z=23–30, 36, 42, 50, 54, 60, 64, 70, 74, 79, 85 and 92. For the convenience of usage, the ab initio level-by-level total rate coefficients for DR initially from both the ground state 3s23p6 1S0 and the metastable state 3s23p53d 3P0 are presented in a simple compact fitting form. We include the 3 → 3 (Δn=0), 2 → 3 and 3 → 4 (Δn=1), and 3 → 5 (Δn=2) core-excitations resonances as well as the decays from the resonances toward low-lying autoionizing levels followed possibly by radiative cascade effects in our ab initio DR results. The detailed configuration interaction analysis and comparisons with both theoretical and experimental results show that present total DR rate coefficients are reliable at both low (with a typical uncertainty of a factor of 2 in the photoionized plasma zone) and high (with an uncertainty of about 20% in the collisional plasma zone) temperature. To our knowledge, these are the first ab initio DR results for most of ions with Z > 30.