Electron impact excitation rate coefficients of N II ion

Abstract

This paper calculates the electron impact excitation rate coefficients from the ground term 2s22p2 3P to the excited terms of the 2s22p2, 2s2p3, 2s22p3s, 2s22p3p, and 2s22p3d configurations of N II. In the calculations, multiconfiguration Dirac–Fork wave functions have been applied to describe the target-ion states and relativistic distorted-wave calculation has been performed to generate fine-structure collision strengths. The collision strengths are then averaged over a Maxwellian distribution of electron velocities in order to generate the effective collision strengths. The calculated rate coefficients are compared with available experimental and theoretical data, and some good agreements are found for the outer shell electron excitations. But for the inner shell electron excitations there are still some differences between the present calculations and available experiments.