Electron impact excitation cross sections for argon of interest in plasma modeling

Abstract

We have applied the relativistic distorted-wave (RDW) method to calculate electron impact excitation cross sections for a number of fine-structure transitions in argon atoms. These include excitation from the ground state to the 3p53d, 3p54d and 3p55s fine-structure levels, from the non-metastable levels of the 3p54s configuration to all ten fine-structure levels of the 3p54p configuration as well as from the 3p54p levels to the levels of the excited 3p53d, 3p54d, 3p55d configurations. Differential cross sections are reported for those transitions where experimental results are available for comparison.