Radiative rates and opacity calculations in Ce II-IV Multiconfiguration Dirac-Hartree-Fock radiative parameters for emission lines in Ce II-IV ions and cerium opacity calculations for kilonovae

TL;DR

This paper presents comprehensive relativistic atomic data and opacity calculations for cerium ions, crucial for modeling kilonovae emissions from neutron star mergers, using advanced multiconfiguration Dirac-Hartree-Fock methods.

Contribution

It provides the most complete set of atomic data and opacity calculations for Ce II-IV ions, improving modeling accuracy for kilonovae.

Findings

Enhanced atomic data for Ce II-IV ions.

Accurate opacity calculations for kilonova modeling.

Validation against experimental and theoretical data.

Abstract

Large-scale calculations of atomic structures and radiative properties have been carried out for singly, doubly- and trebly ionized cerium. For this purpose, the purely relativistic multiconfiguration Dirac-Hartree-Fock (MCDHF) method was used, taking into account the effects of valence-valence and core-valence electronic correlations in detail. The results obtained were then used to calculate the expansion opacities characterizing the kilonovae observed as a result of neutron star mergers. Comparisons with previously published experimental and theoretical studies have shown that the results presented in this work are the most complete currently available, in terms of quantity and quality, concerning the atomic data and monochromatic opacities for Ce II, Ce III and Ce IV ions.