Abstract
Experimental evidence of a strong dependence upon the particle density, of soft X-ray features of laser-produced plasmas, leads to investigate several phenomena taking effect on line intensities and line widths. A detailed study of radiative transfer in an unhomogeneous medium dominated by collisions is a primary necessity for interpreting experimental observations of atomic processes in plasmas, and for investigating the energy balance as well. Main aspects of such a study are presented here with numerical examples compared with experimental results. The case of population inversions, able to produce soft X-ray amplification, is considered. On the other hand, it is emphasized that the continua of states above ionization limits of ions are of a great importance for the population rates of many excited levels because of the large den- sity of free electrons occupying these states. Discrete levels, diluted in the continuum owing to auto- ionization process, induce resonances in recombination which must be taken into account for explaining ion abundances as well as excited level populations. Dielectronic recombination and preliminary indications on resonance in three-body recombination are presented. The theory of autoionizing states is developed with a view to estimate the perturbation of density of states in the continuum close to autoionizing levels.
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