Comprehensive rate coefficients for electron-collision-induced transitions in hydrogen

Journal Article · Wed Jan 01 00:00:00 EST 2014 · Astrophysical Journal

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-637X/780/1/2· OSTI ID:22348380

Vrinceanu, D. ^[1]; Onofrio, R. ^[2]

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1. Department of Physics, Texas Southern University, Houston, TX 77004 (United States)
2. Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia "Galileo Galilei," Università di Padova, Via Marzolo 8, I-35131 Padova (Italy)

Energy-changing electron-hydrogen atom collisions are crucial to regulating the energy balance in astrophysical and laboratory plasmas and are relevant to the formation of stellar atmospheres, recombination in H II clouds, primordial recombination, three-body recombination, and heating in ultracold and fusion plasmas. Computational modeling of electron-hydrogen collision has been attempted through quantum mechanical scattering state-to-state calculations of transitions involving low-lying energy levels in hydrogen (with principal quantum number n < 7) and at large principal quantum numbers using classical trajectory techniques. Analytical expressions are proposed that interpolate the current quantum mechanical and classical trajectory results for electron-hydrogen scattering in the entire range of energy levels for nearly the entire temperature range of interest in astrophysical environments. An asymptotic expression for the Born cross section is interpolated with a modified expression previously derived for electron-hydrogen scattering in the Rydberg regime using classical trajectory Monte Carlo simulations. The derived formula is compared to existing numerical data for transitions involving low principal quantum numbers, and the dependence of the deviations on temperature is discussed.

• OSTI ID: 22348380
• Journal Information: Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 780, Issue 1; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0004-637X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

79 ASTROPHYSICS
COSMOLOGY AND ASTRONOMY
ASTROPHYSICS
ASYMPTOTIC SOLUTIONS
ATOM COLLISIONS
BORN APPROXIMATION
COMPUTERIZED SIMULATION
ELECTRON COLLISIONS
ENERGY BALANCE
HYDROGEN
MONTE CARLO METHOD
QUANTUM MECHANICS
QUANTUM NUMBERS
RECOMBINATION
RYDBERG STATES
SCATTERING
STARS
STELLAR ATMOSPHERES
TEMPERATURE RANGE
THREE-BODY PROBLEM
TRAJECTORIES
UNIVERSE