Thermally averaged collision strengths for extreme-ultraviolet line of Fe ix
Collision strengths and thermally averaged collision strengths for a large number of extreme-ultraviolet lines of Fe ix arising by electron impact have been reported. The thermally averaged collision strengths are calculated at electron temperatures in the range 10{sup 4}–10{sup 7} K for the 122,043 forbidden and allowed transitions between the 370 fine-structure levels. The atomic parameters for Fe ix play an important role in modeling of various astrophysical plasmas, including especially the solar corona. The B-spline Breit–Pauli R-matrix method has been used in the calculation of collision strengths. The target wave functions and transition probabilities have been determined by combining the multiconfiguration Hartree–Fock method with the B-spline box-based multichannel expansions. We have included 370 fine-structure levels of Fe ix in the energy region up to 3s{sup 2}3p{sup 5}5s states. The close-coupling expansion includes levels of the 3s{sup 2}3p{sup 6}, 3s{sup 2}3p{sup 5}3d,4l,5s, 3s3p{sup 6}3d,4s,4p, 3s{sup 2}3p{sup 4}3d{sup 2}, 3s3p{sup 5}3d{sup 2} configurations and some low-lying levels of the 3s{sup 2}3p{sup 3}3d{sup 3} configuration in our collision strengths and transition probabilities calculations. There is a good agreement with the previous R-matrix collision strength calculations by Storey et al. and Del Zanna et al. for transitions between the lowest 17 levels of the 3s{sup 2}3p{sup 6}, 3s{sup 2}3p{sup 5}3d, and 3s3p{sup 6}3d configurations, especially for electron temperatures log T(K) ≥ 5.0. The transitions between the first 17 levels are dominated by Rydberg series of resonances converging to the levels of the 3s{sup 2}3p{sup 4}3d{sup 2} configuration. The present results and the calculation of Del Zanna et al. show significant differences for many weaker forbidden and intercombination transitions with thermally averaged collision strengths smaller than 0.01.