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Radiative cooling is central to a wide range of astrophysical problems. Despite its importance, cooling rates are generally computed using very restrictive assumptions, such as collisional ionization equilibrium and solar relative abundances. We simultaneously relax both assumptions and investigate the effects of photo-ionization of heavy elements by the meta-galactic UV/X-ray background and of variations in relative abundances on the cooling rates of optically thin gas in ionization equilibrium. We find that photo-ionization by the meta-galactic background radiation reduces the net cooling rates by up to an order of magnitude for gas densities and temperatures typical of the shock-heated intergalactic medium and proto-galaxies. In addition, photo-ionization changes the relative contributions of different elements to the cooling rates. We conclude that photo-ionization by the ionizing background and heavy elements both need to be taken into account in order for the cooling rates to be correct to order of magnitude. Moreover, if the rates need to be known to better than a factor of a few, then departures of the relative abundances from solar need to be taken into account. We propose a method to compute cooling rates on an element-by-element basis by interpolating pre-computed tables that take photo-ionization into account. We provide such tables for a popular model of the evolving UV/X-ray background radiation, computed using the photo-ionization package CLOUDY.
We discuss recent improvements in the calculation of the radiative cooling in both collisionally and photo ionized plasmas. We are extending the spectral simulation code Cloudy so that as much as possible of the underlying atomic data is taken from e
High-brightness muon beams of energy comparable to those produced by state-of-the-art electron, proton and ion accelerators have yet to be realised. Such beams have the potential to carry the search for new phenomena in lepton-antilepton collisions t
This article illustrates how very small deviations from the Maxwellian exponential tail, while leaving unchanged bulk quantities, can yield dramatic effects on fusion reaction rates and discuss several mechanisms that can cause such deviations.
Laser frequency can be upconverted in a plasma undergoing ionization. For finite ionization rates, the laser pulse energy is partitioned into a pair of counter-propagating waves and static transverse currents. The wave amplitudes are determined by th
Recent experiments with ultracold neutral plasmas show an intrinsic heating effect based on the development of spatial correlations. We investigate whether this effect can be reversed, so that imposing strong spatial correlations could in fact lead t