No Arabic abstract
As part of a project to compute improved atomic data for the spectral modeling of iron K lines, we report extensive calculations and comparisons of atomic data for K-vacancy states in Fe XXIV. The data sets include: (i) energy levels, line wavelengths, radiative and Auger rates; (ii) inner-shell electron impact excitation rates and (iii) fine structure inner-shell photoionization cross sections. The calculations of energy levels and radiative and Auger rates have involved a detailed study of orbital representations, core relaxation, configuration interaction, relativistic corrections, cancellation effects and semi-empirical corrections. It is shown that a formal treatment of the Breit interaction is essential to render the important magnetic correlations that take part in the decay pathways of this ion. As a result, the accuracy of the present A-values is firmly ranked at better than 10% while that of the Auger rates at only 15%. The calculations of collisional excitation and photoionization cross sections take into account the effects of radiation and spectator Auger dampings. In the former, these effects cause significant attenuation of resonances leading to a good agreement with a simpler method where resonances are excluded. In the latter, resonances converging to the K threshold display symmetric profiles of constant width that causes edge smearing.
The main goal of the present work is to estimate the effects of plasma environment on the atomic parameters associated with the K-vacancy states in highly charged iron ions within the astrophysical context of accretion disks around black holes. In order to do this, multiconfiguration Dirac-Fock computations have been carried out by considering a time averaged Debye-Huckel potential for both the electron-nucleus and electron-electron interactions. In the present paper, a first sample of results related to the ionization potentials, the K-thresholds, the transition energies and the radiative emission rates is reported for the ions Fe 23+ and Fe 24+ .
We report extensive calculations of the decay properties of fine-structure K-vacancy levels in Fe X-Fe XVII. A large set of level energies, wavelengths, radiative and Auger rates, and fluorescence yields has been computed using three different standard atomic codes, namely Cowans HFR, AUTOSTRUCTURE and the Breit-Pauli R-matrix package. This multi-code approach is used to the study the effects of core relaxation, configuration interaction and the Breit interaction, and enables the estimate of statistical accuracy ratings. The K-alpha and KLL Auger widths have been found to be nearly independent of both the outer-electron configuration and electron occupancy keeping a constant ratio of 1.53+/-0.06. By comparing with previous theoretical and measured wavelengths, the accuracy of the present set is determined to be within 2 mA. Also, the good agreement found between the different radiative and Auger data sets that have been computed allow us to propose with confidence an accuracy rating of 20% for the line fluorescence yields greater than 0.01. Emission and absorption spectral features are predicted finding good correlation with measurements in both laboratory and astrophysical plasmas.
The electronic structure of the vacancy-ordered K$_{0.5}$Fe$_{1.75}$Se$_2$ iron-selenide compound (278 phase) is studied using the first-principles density functional method. The ground state of the 278 phase is stripe-like antiferromagnetic, and its bare electron susceptibility shows a large peak around $(pi, pi)$ in the folded Brillouin zone. Near Fermi level, the density of states are dominated by the Fe-3d orbitals, and both electron-like and hole-like Fermi surfaces appear in the Brillouin zone. Unfolded band structure shows limited similarities to a hole doped 122 phase. With 0.1e electron doping, the susceptibility peak is quickly suppressed and broadened; while the two-dimensionality of the electron-like Fermi surfaces are greatly enhanced, resulting in a better nesting behavior. Our study should be relevant to the recently reported superconducting phase K$_{0.5+x}$Fe$_{1.75+y}$Se$_2$ with both $x$ and $y$ very tiny.
A detailed analysis of the radiative and Auger de-excitation channels of K-shell vacancy states in Fe II-Fe IX has been carried out. Level energies, wavelengths, A-values, Auger rates and fluorescence yields have been calculated for the lowest fine-structure levels populated by photoionization of the ground state of the parent ion. Different branching ratios, namely K-alpha_2/K-alpha_1, K-beta/K-alpha, KLM/KLL, KMM/KLL, and the total K-shell fluorescence yields, omega_K, obtained in the present work have been compared with other theoretical data and solid-state measurements, finding good general agreement with the latter. The K-alpha_2/K-alpha_1 ratio is found to be sensitive to the excitation mechanism. From these comparisons it has been possible to estimate an accuracy of ~10% for the present transition probabilities.
We have carried out a detailed study to investigate the existence of an insulating parent phase for FeSe superconductor. The insulating Fe4Se5 with specific Fe-vacancy order shows a 3D-Mott variable range hopping behavior with a Verwey-like electronic correlation at around 45 K. The application of the RTA process at 450 celcius degree results in the destruction of Fe-vacancy order and induces more electron carriers by increasing the Fe3+ valence state. Superconductivity emerges with Tc ~ 8K without changing the chemical stoichiometry of the sample after the RTA process by resulting in the addition of extra carriers in favor of superconductivity.