Non-LTE and optical depth effects to be considered in quantitative spectroscopy of cold and dense plasmas

This paper describes a collisional radiative steady state model for spatially homogeneous plasmas including an arbitrary number of levels of the ion to be considered. Non-equilibrium situations are taken into account as well as optical depth effects. Total particle density and temperature are used as independent parameters while the optical source thickness is obtained from the corresponding absorption coefficients. No particular case is assumed for the transitions considered and line intensities ratios can be obtained for any pair of allowed dipolar transitions. Temperature, particle and the derived electron densities ranges are considered which are of fundamental interest in quantitative spectroscopy (e.g. laser induced breakdown spectroscopy). Some well established results for simple cases are reproduced by the model and other results are presented for complex ions.