Collisional radiative model for heavy atoms in hot non-local-thermodynamical-equilibrium plasmas

A collisional radiative model for calculating non-local-thermodynamical-equilibrium (non-LTE) spectra of heavy atoms in hot plasmas has been developed, taking into account the numerous excited and autoionizing states. This model uses superconfigurations as effective levels with an iterative procedure which converges to the detailed configuration spectrum. The non-LTE opacities and emissivities may serve as a reliable benchmark for simpler on-line models in hydrodynamic code simulations. The model is tested against detailed configuration calculations of selenium and is applied to non-LTE optically thin plasma of lutetium.