Modeling of temperature and ionization of laboratory photoionized plasmas

Measurements of the electron temperature in laboratory photoionized plasma experiments have shown significant discrepancies with predictions computed with steady-state astrophysical models. However, radiation-hydrodynamics simulations of the experiments including inline, time-dependent atomic physics have produced good temperature comparisons between theory and observation.1 We discuss differences in the physics models employed in astrophysical and radiation-hydrodynamics codes. Additionally, we use the new capability of astrophysics model codes to include transient effects in the energy and level population dynamics to recompute our previous model calculations. Temperatures computed with astrophysics models that account for time-dependent effects compare much better with measurements and thus to radiation-hydrodynamics predictions as well.