STATISTICAL SIMULATION OF ATOMIC DATA IN OPACITY CALCULATIONS

The most significant improvement in radiative opacity codes in recent years has been advances in the atomic data incorporated in the models. In particular, the configuration term structure, which significantly increases the amount of atomic data in the calculations, is now explicitly included for elements with low atomic number. For large atomic number, where explicit calculations are impractical, clever methods have been developed that conserve a few properties of the transition arrays rather than attempt to reproduce the detailed spectrum. There are, however, conditions where neglecting the resolved character of the transition arrays leads to large errors, but for which explicit calculations are either costly or impractical. Here, we test recently developed methods for statistically simulating resolved transition arrays. When possible, the results are compared to explicit calculations and experiments.