Published March 1, 2012 | Version v1
Journal article

ION-BY-ION COOLING EFFICIENCIES

  • 1. Theoretical Astrophysics, California Institute of Technology, MC 350-17, Pasadena, CA 91125 (United States) and Racah Institute of Physics, Hebrew University, 91904 Jerusalem (Israel)
  • 2. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40506 (United States)

Description

We present ion-by-ion cooling efficiencies for low-density gas. We use Cloudy (version 10.00) to estimate the cooling efficiencies for each ion of the first 30 elements (H-Zn) individually. We present results for gas temperatures between 104 and 108 K, assuming low densities and optically thin conditions. When nonequilibrium ionization plays a significant role the ionization states deviate from those that obtain in collisional ionization equilibrium (CIE), and the local cooling efficiency at any given temperature depends on specific nonequilibrium ion fractions. The results presented here allow for an efficient estimate of the total cooling efficiency for any ionic composition. We also list the elemental cooling efficiencies assuming CIE conditions. These can be used to construct CIE cooling efficiencies for non-solar abundance ratios or to estimate the cooling due to elements not included in any nonequilibrium computation. All the computational results are listed in convenient online tables.

Availability note (English)

Available from http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/0067-0049/199/1/20

Additional details

Identifiers

Publishing Information

Journal Title
Astrophysical Journal, Supplement Series
Journal Volume
199
Journal Issue
1
Journal Page Range
[5 p.]
ISSN
0067-0049
CODEN
APJSA2