Effective collision strengths for electron impact excitation of Si VIII

Effective collision strengths for electron-impact excitation of the nitrogen-like ion Si VIII are presented over the wide range of electron temperatures logT(K)=4.0-6.5. All 231 fine-structure transitions among the 22 fine-structure levels arising from the lowest 11 LS target states (2s22p3, 2s2p4, 2p5, and 2s22p23s) are considered in the tabulation. The collision strengths are evaluated in a multi-channel R-matrix approach, and the corresponding effective collision strengths are obtained by averaging these over a Maxwellian distribution of electron velocities. Comparisons are made with recent distorted-wave results at high incident electron energies. Differences of up to 20% are found, particularly for some allowed transitions