Plasma screening effects on proton-impact excitation of Ar17+

Abstract

Quantal calculations of the proton-impact excitation of the n=2 fine-structure levels of ${\mathrm{Ar}}^{17+}$ in a dense plasma are carried out and compared to recent semiclassical impact-parameter calculations. The agreement is satisfactory and confirms the usefulness of the semiclassical approximation. The sensitivity of the cross sections to the form of the screening potentials is also investigated.