Kinetics of Ionization-Recombination of a Plasma and Population Density of Excited Ions. III. Recombining Plasma–High-Temperature Case

With an increase in n e from the low-density limit an excited level starts from the capture-radiative-cascade (CRC) phase to reach the saturation phase, its transition being given by Griem's LTE boundary. In the former phase the population density approaches asymptotically to the thermal-equilibrium value in the limit of large principal quantum number. In the saturation phase partial LTE is established for all of the levels. For the net or collisional-radiative recombination the rate coefficient is n e -independent in the low-density region and becomes proportional to n e in the high-density region. The boundary is given from the transition between the radiative and collisional populating processes of the ground level.