Energy levels, radiative rates and electron impact excitation rates for transitions in Si III

TL;DR

This paper provides detailed calculations of energy levels, radiative rates, and electron impact excitation rates for Si III, an astrophysically significant ion, using advanced computational methods and compares results with existing data.

Contribution

The study offers new, comprehensive atomic data for Si III, including collision strengths and effective collision strengths, with extensive resonance resolution and comparison to recent R-matrix results.

Findings

Good agreement with experimental energies for low levels.

Strong E1 transition rates align well with previous results.

Significant discrepancies in effective collision strengths for many transitions.

Abstract

Energy levels and radiative rates (A-values) for four types of transitions (E1, E2, M1, and M2) are reported for an astrophysically important Mg-like ion Si~III, whose emission lines have been observed in a variety of plasmas. For the calculations, well-known and widely-used GRASP code has been adopted, and results are listed for transitions among the 141 levels of the 3$\ell3\ell'$ and 3$\ell$4$\ell$ configurations. Experimental energies are available for only the lowest 58 levels but there is no major discrepancy with theoretical results. Similarly, the A-values and lifetimes show a satisfactory agreement with other available results, particularly for strong E1 transitions. Collision strengths are also calculated, with the DARC code, and listed for resonance transitions over a wide energy range, up to 30~Ryd. No similar results are available in the literature for comparisons. However, comparisons are made with the more important parameter, effective collision strength ($\Upsilon$), for which recent $R$-matrix results are available for a wide range of transitions, and over a large range of temperatures. To determine $\Upsilon$, resonances have been resolved in a narrow energy mesh, although these are not observed to be as important as for other ions. Unfortunately, large discrepancies in $\Upsilon$ values are noted for about half the transitions. The differences increase with increasing temperature and worsen as the upper level J increases. In most cases the earlier results are overestimated, by up to (almost) two orders of magnitude, and this conclusion is consistent with the one observed earlier for Be-like ions.