Excitation of N V by electron impact

The theory is given for the excitation of Li-like ions by electron impact. The transitions of interest in this paper are those in which the optical electron only is excited while the (1s) 2 core is left unexcited. For such transitions the theory follows closely that for hydrogen-like ions. The theory is applied to transitions induced by electron impact between the 2s, 2p, 3s, 3p and 3d states of N V between threshold and 435.36 eV. The majority of the calculations are carried out in the Coulomb-Born approximation and conclusions are drawn about the accuracy of the results by comparing with strong-coupling and close-coupling calculations. A discussion is given of the importance of these cross sections in the temperature measurement of a laboratory plasma.