Nitrogen K-Shell Photoabsorption

Abstract

Reliable atomic data have been computed for the spectral modeling of the nitrogen K lines, which may lead to useful astrophysical diagnostics. Data sets comprise valence and K-vacancy level energies, wavelengths, Einstein A-coefficients, radiative and Auger widths, and K-edge photoionization cross sections. An important issue is the lack of measurements that are usually employed to fine-tune calculations so as to attain spectroscopic accuracy. In order to estimate data quality, several atomic structure codes are used and extensive comparisons with previous theoretical data have been carried out. In the calculation of K photoabsorption with the Breit-Pauli R-matrix method, both radiation and Auger dampings, which cause the smearing of the K edge, are taken into account. This work is part of a wider project to compute atomic data in the X-ray regime to be included in the database of the popular XSTAR modeling code.