Bibcode
Crivellari, L.; Cardona, O.; Simonneau, E.
Bibliographical reference
Astrophysics (English translation of Astrofizika), v. 45, Issue 4, p. 480-488 (2002).
Advertised on:
10
2002
Citations
6
Refereed citations
2
Description
Once the need for an iterative procedure in order to solve the problem
of the formation of spectral lines in the case of a model atom with many
energy levels, the sequel is to seek for the most effective form of such
an iterative scheme. It is an almost universal is assumed within all the
iterative methods for the solution of those radiative transfer problems,
in which the transfer equations are coupled to the state of the matter,
to take as the input of each step of iterations the values of the
opacity coefficients obtained as a result of the previous one. This is,
for instance, the procedure used to correct the temperature in the
computation of stellar atmosphere models, or that to build the -operator
(either the exact or the approximated one) within the Accelerated Lambda
Iteration methods. Yet, if we assume, in order to solve the multilevel
line transfer problem, that at each step of iterations the line
opacities are known, we can express via the statistical equilibrium
equations the populations of the energy levels - and consequently the
source functions of the relevant spectral lines - as a linear function
of the full set of the corresponding mean intensities of the radiation
field. Once such linear forms for the source functions, we are able to
solve without the need of any further approximation the radiative
transfer equations for are obtained lines, now linearly coupled through
the above linear forms of the statistical equilibrium equations. This is
achieved by means of the Implicit Integral Method that we already
presented in a series of previous papers.