Spectral lines (part 2)

10 Março 2020, 13:00 • Israel Matute Troncoso

This lecture discussed in detail the physical reason for the intensity of the lines and the equations that govern such emissions and intensities. 
In particular, we looked into:

- how the line intensity depends not only on the abundance of the species given origin to the line but also the "population" of that species, i.e. the fraction of electrons in the different orbital levels as well as the fraction of ionization of the species. Derivation and extensive discussion of the two equations that regulate such populations:

- The Boltzmann eq. regulating the orbital population and,

- The Saha eq. regulating the ionization states.

We looked into specfic examples of the applications of these equations and in particular how the combination of both can explain observables like the fraction of ionized Hydrogen on stars of different temperatures.