A Practical Guide to the Partition Function of Atoms and Ions

TL;DR

This paper provides practical insights into calculating the partition function of atoms and ions, clarifying its behavior across different atomic structures and addressing common misconceptions about its divergence at high temperatures.

Contribution

It offers a detailed analysis of the partition function's limits for different atomic systems and discusses the uncertainties in high-density plasma truncation theories.

Findings

Partition function remains finite for one and two-electron systems at high temperatures.

Many-electron species have a temperature-sensitive partition function that does not diverge.

Discrepancies exist among theories of continuum lowering in high-density plasmas.

Abstract

The partition function, $U$, the number of available states in an atom or molecules, is crucial for understanding the physical state of any astrophysical system in thermodynamic equilibrium. There are surprisingly few {\em useful} discussions of the partition function's numerical value. Textbooks often define $U$; some give tables of representative values, while others do a deep dive into the theory of a dense plasma. Most say that it depends on temperature, atomic structure, density, and that it diverges, that is, it goes to infinity, at high temperatures, but few give practical examples. We aim to rectify this. We show that there are two limits, one and two-electron (or closed-shell) systems like H or He, and species with a complicated electronic structure like C, N, O, and Fe. The high-temperature divergence does not occur for one and two-electron systems in practical situations since, at high temperatures, species are collisionally ionized to higher ionization stages and are not abundant. The partition function is then close to the statistical weight of the ground state. There is no such simplification for many-electron species. $U$ is temperature-sensitive across the range of temperatures where an ion is abundant but remains finite at even the highest practical temperatures. The actual value depends on highly uncertain truncation theories in high-density plasmas. We show that there are various theories for continuum lowering but that they are not in good agreement. This remains a long-standing unsolved problem.