PLASMA DIAGNOSTIC POTENTIAL OF 2<i>p</i>4<i>f</i>IN N⁺—ACCURATE WAVELENGTHS AND OSCILLATOR STRENGTHS

Abstract

Radiative emission lines from nitrogen and its ions are often observed in nebula spectra, where the N 2+ abundance can be inferred from lines of the 2p4f configuration. In addition, intensity ratios between lines of the 2p3p-2p3s and 2p4f-2p3d transition arrays can serve as temperature diagnostics. To aid abundance determinations and plasma diagnostics, wavelengths and oscillator strengths were calculated with high precision for electric dipole (E1) transitions from levels in the 2p4f configuration of N + . Electron correlation and relativistic effects, including the Breit interaction, were systematically taken into account within the framework of the multiconfiguration Dirac-Hartree-Fock method. Except for the 2p4f-2p4d transitions with quite large wavelengths and the twoelectron-one-photon 2p4f-2s2p 3 transitions, the uncertainties of the present calculations were controlled to within 3% and 5% for wavelengths and oscillator strengths, respectively. We also compared our results with other theoretical and experimental values when available. Discrepancies were found between our calculations and previous calculations due to the neglect of relativistic effects in the latter.