Accelerated Recombination due to Resonant Deexcitation of Metastable States

Abstract

In a recombining plasma the metastable states are known to accumulate population thereby slowing down the recombination process. We show that an account of the doubly-excited autoionizing states, formed due to collisional recombination of metastable ions, results in a significant acceleration of recombination. A fully time-dependent collisional-radiative (CR) modeling for stripped ions of carbon recombining in a cold dense plasma demonstrates an order of magnitude faster recombination of He-like ions. The CR model used in calculations is discussed in detail.