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R. K. Smith, N. S. Brickhouse, J. C. Raymond (Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory), D. A. Liedahl (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory)
Calculating the spectrum of a thermal plasma remains an ongoing challenge involving both atomic and plasma physics, as well as numerical computational issues. The Astrophysical Plasma Emission Code (APEC) is designed to separate these issues so they can be attacked individually. The code contains no atomic data inherently, but calculates the emission from a hot plasma using atomic data stored separately (see Brickhouse et al. poster). Many atomic processes, including radiative recombination, dielectronic recombination and satellite lines, and collisional de-excitation, are included in a self-consistent fashion. This approach has the advantage, for example, of including the density dependence of each transition. We present results from APEC for a selection of ionic sequences and compare with results from SPEX, Chianti, and the Raymond-Smith code.
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