Dielectronic recombination rate coefficients of initially rubidium-like tungsten

Dielectric recombination (DR) is a dominant electron recombination process in plasmas. Tungsten ions are expected to be prominent impurities in fusion plasmas so the knowledge of DR rate coefficient of tungsten ions is important to model fusion plasmas. Ab initio calculations of DR rate coefficients of initially rubidium-like W³⁷⁺ ions have been performed for the electron temperatures from 1 eV to 5*10⁴ eV, by using the Flexible Atomic Code based on the relativistic configuration-interaction method. Special attention has been paid to the partial contributions to total DR rate coefficients as associated with the excitation of individual subshells. A detailed comparison of the calculations shows that the excitation from 4p subshell dominates total DR rate coefficients followed by the excitations from 4s and 4d subshells, while the contribution of excitations from 3l (l = s, p, d) subshells becomes important only at high temperatures. Besides, it is found that the electron excitations associated with Δn = 0, 1 dominate at low-temperature plasmas, however, the excitations associated with Δn ≥ 2 become non-negligible at high-temperature ones