Effective collision strengths for excitation and de-excitation of nebular [O III] optical and infrared lines with kappa distributed electron energies

TL;DR

This paper calculates effective collision strengths for O^{2+} ion transitions considering kappa-distributed electron energies, aiding more accurate astrophysical plasma diagnostics.

Contribution

It provides new tabulated collision strengths for O^{2+} with kappa distributions, based on R-matrix calculations, enhancing modeling of nebular emission lines.

Findings

Collision strengths tabulated for various kappa values.

Data applicable to nebular optical and infrared lines.

Improved accuracy in plasma diagnostics.

Abstract

We present effective collision strengths for electron excitation and de-excitation of the ten forbidden transitions between the five lowest energy levels of the astronomically abundant doubly-ionised oxygen ion, O^{2+}. The raw collision strength data were obtained from an R-matrix intermediate coupling calculation using the Breit-Pauli relativistic approximation published previously by the authors. The effective collision strengths were calculated with kappa-distributed electron energies and are tabulated as a function of the electron temperature and kappa.