Absorption and emission spectra of plasmas with multicharged-ions contain transition arrays with a huge number of coalescent electricdipole (E1) lines, which are well suited for treatment by the unresolved transition array and derivative methods. But, some transition arrays show detailed features whose description requires diagonalization of the Hamiltonian matrix. We developed a hybrid opacity code, called SCORCG, which combines statistical approaches with fine-structure calculations consistently. Data required for the computation of detailed transition arrays (atomic configurations and atomic radial integrals) are calculated by the super-configuration code SCO (SuperConfiguration Opacity), which provides an accurate description of the plasma screening effects on the wave-functions. Level energies as well as position and strength of spectral lines are computed by an adapted RCG routine of R. D. Cowan. The resulting code provides opacities for hot plasmas and can handle mid-Z elements. The code is also a powerful tool for the interpretation of recent laser and Z -pinch experimental spectra, as well as for validation of statistical methods.
a b s t r a c tOpacity is an important ingredient of the evolution of stars. The calculation of opacity coefficients is complicated by the fact that the plasma contains partially ionized heavy ions that contribute to opacity dominated by H and He. Up to now, the astrophysical community has greatly benefited from the work of the contributions of Los Alamos [1], Livermore [2] and the Opacity Project (OP) [3]. However unexplained differences of up to 50% in the radiative forces and Rosseland mean values for Fe have been noticed for conditions corresponding to stellar envelopes. Such uncertainty has a real impact on the understanding of pulsating stellar envelopes, on the excitation of modes, and on the identification of the mode frequencies. Temperature and density conditions equivalent to those found in stars can now be produced in laboratory experiments for various atomic species. Recently the photo-absorption spectra of nickel and iron plasmas have been measured during the LULI 2010 campaign, for temperatures between 15 and 40 eV and densities of w3 mg/cm 3 . A large theoretical collaboration, the "OPAC", has been formed to prepare these experiments. We present here the set of opacity calculations performed by eight different groups for conditions relevant to the LULI 2010 experiment and to astrophysical stellar envelope conditions.
This paper deals with theoretical studies on the 2p-3d absorption in iron, nickel, and copper plasmas related to LULI2000 (Laboratoire pour l'Utilisation des Lasers Intenses, 2000J facility) measurements in which target temperatures were of the order of 20 eV and plasma densities were in the range 0.004-0.01 g/cm(3). The radiatively heated targets were close to local thermodynamic equilibrium (LTE). The structure of 2p-3d transitions has been studied with the help of the statistical superconfiguration opacity code SCO and with the fine-structure atomic physics codes HULLAC and FAC. A new mixed version of the sco code allowing one to treat part of the configurations by detailed calculation based on the Cowan's code RCG has been also used in these comparisons. Special attention was paid to comparisons between theory and experiment concerning the term features which cannot be reproduced by SCO. The differences in the spin-orbit splitting and the statistical (thermal) broadening of the 2p-3d transitions have been investigated as a function of the atomic number Z. It appears that at the conditions of the experiment the role of the term and configuration broadening was different in the three analyzed elements, this broadening being sensitive to the atomic number. Some effects of the temperature gradients and possible non-LTE effects have been studied with the help of the radiative-collisional code SCRIC. The sensitivity of the 2p-3d structures with respect to temperature and density in medium-Z plasmas may be helpful for diagnostics of LTE plasmas especially in future experiments on the Δn=0 absorption in medium-Z plasmas for astrophysical applications.
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