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We report the measurements of the n = 3 → n = 2 L-shell X-ray transitions of neon-like Eu53+. These include all seven allowed electric dipole (E1) transitions, five electric quadrupole (E2) transitions, and one magnetic quadrupole (M2) transition. The measurements were carried out at the EBIT-I electron beam ion trap facility at Livermore using an X-ray calorimeter. The measured values agree with many-body perturbation theory calculations within the experimental uncertainties. This includes the transitions that involve a 2s electron and that are, therefore, strongly affected by quantum electrodynamical effects.

A multitude of weaker Fe IX lines have been predicted in the vicinity of the strong 171 Å line that dominates the spectra of many astrophysical and laboratory sources. Some of these weaker lines have only recently been identified in the laboratory, albeit some only tentatively. Here, we present measurements on the Livermore EBIT-I electron beam ion trap that span the region from 170.0 to 173.6 Å, which surrounds the 171 Å line. The measurements stepped through electron beam energy to determine the charge state of iron associated with each observed feature. Moreover, we have minimized the presence of oxygen in the trap, because oxygen lines obscured possible Fe IX lines in past measurements and prevented their identification. Our measurement confirms formerly tentative identifications and adds several new assignments.

We present an analysis of the first observation of the iconic high-mass X-ray binary 4U 1700−37 with the Chandra High-Energy Transmission Gratings (HETGs) during an X-ray eclipse. The goal of the observation was to study the structure/physical conditions in the clumpy stellar wind through high-resolution spectroscopy. We find the following: (a) Emission-line brightness from K-shell transitions, corresponding to near-neutral species, directly correlates with continuum illumination. However, these lines do not greatly diminish during eclipse. This is readily explained if fluorescence K α emission comes from the bulk of the wind. (b) The highly ionized Fe xxv and Fe xxvi Ly α diminish during eclipse. Thus, they must be produced in the vicinity of the compact object where log ξ > 3. (c) To describe the emission-line spectrum, the sum of two self-consistent photoionization models with low ionization (log ξ ∼ −1) and high ionization (log ξ ∼ 2.4) is required. From their emission measures, the clump-to-interclump density ratio can be estimated to be nc/ni ∼ 300. To fit the complex He-like Si xiii profile, the plasma requires a broadening with vbulk ∼ 840 km s−1. Reproducing the observed r ≈ f line fluxes requires the addition of a third collisionally ionized plasma. (d) Emission-line widths appear unresolved at the HETG resolution with the exception of silicon. There is no clear radial segregation between (quasi-)neutral and ionized species, consistent with cold wind clumps interspersed in a hot rarefied interclump medium. This research has been funded under the project ESP2017-85691-P. The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Programme under the Activities for the High-Energy Astrophysiscs Domain (AHEAD) project (grant agreement no. 654215). Victoria Grinberg (VG) was supported through the Margarete von Wrangell fellowship by the ESF and the Ministry of Science, Research and the Arts of Baden-Württemberg. Work at LLNL was performed under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy under contract no. DE-AC52-07NA27344 and supported through National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) grants to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). Lida M. Oskinova acknowledges Deutsches Zentrum für Luft und Raumfahrt (DLR) grant FKZ 50 OR 1508 and partial support by the Russian Government Program of Competitive Growth of Kazan Federal University.

The Resolve detector system is calibrated on the ground in three stages: at the focal plane assembly, at the calorimeter spectrometer insert, and at the full instrument level. We have just completed the first two stages and have measured the detailed core line shape and spectral redistribution functions, by pixel, and as a function of energy. In addition, we have measured the energy scale function that translates instrument units into spectral units, by pixel, and as a function of detector heat sink temperature. We discuss the results of the Resolve calibration program to date as well as implications for the calibration of future high resolution x-ray spectrometers.

We demonstrate a widely applicable technique to absolutely calibrate the energy scale of x-ray spectra with experimentally well-known and accurately calculable transitions of highly charged ions, allowing us to measure the K-shell Rydberg spectrum of molecular O_{2} with 8 meV uncertainty. We reveal a systematic ∼450 meV shift from previous literature values, and settle an extraordinary discrepancy between astrophysical and laboratory measurements of neutral atomic oxygen, the latter being calibrated against the aforementioned O_{2} literature values. Because of the widespread use of such, now deprecated, references, our method impacts on many branches of x-ray absorption spectroscopy. Moreover, it potentially reduces absolute uncertainties there to below the meV level.

We resonantly excite the $K$ series of O$^{5+}$ and O$^{6+}$ up to principal quantum number $n=11$ with monochromatic x rays, producing $K$-shell holes, and observe their relaxation by soft-x-ray emission. Some photoabsorption resonances of O$^{5+}$ reveal strong two-electron--one-photon (TEOP) transitions. We find that for the $[(1s\,2s)_1\,5p_{3/2}]_{3/2;1/2}$ states, TEOP relaxation is by far stronger than the radiative decay and competes with the usually much faster Auger decay path. This enhanced TEOP decay arises from a strong correlation with the near-degenerate upper states $[(1s\,2p_{3/2})_1\,4s]_{3/2;1/2}$ of a Li-like satellite blend of the He-like $K\alpha$ transition. Even in three-electron systems, TEOP transitions can play a dominant role, and the present results should guide further research on the ubiquitous and abundant many-electron ions where electronic energy degeneracies are far more common and configuration mixing is stronger., Comment: Published in PRA

Based on laboratory data from the Lawrence Livermore EBIT-I electron beam ion trap and calculations using the relativistic multi-reference Moller-Plesset (MRMP) perturbation theory approach, we identify L-shell transitions of M-shell iron ions in emission spectra of the nearby stars Capella and Procyon. These lines are weaker than the well known, prominent lines from Fe XVII. However, they need to be taken into account when modeling the spectra, especially of cool stars.

High mass X-ray binaries hold the promise of giving us understanding of the structure of the winds of their supermassive companion stars by using the emission from the compact object as a backlight to evaluate the variable absorption in the structured stellar wind. The wind along the line of sight can change on timescales as short as minutes and below. However, such short timescales are not available to direct measurement of absorption through X-ray spectroscopy with the current generation of X-ray telescopes. In this paper, we demonstrate the usability of color-color diagrams for assessing the variable absorption in wind accreting high mass X-ray binary systems. We employ partial covering models to describe the spectral shape of high mass X-ray binaries and assess the implication of different absorbers and their variability on the shape of color-color tracks. We show that taking into account the ionization of the absorber, and in particular accounting for the variation of ionization with absorption depth, is crucial to describe the observed behavior well., Comment: 8 pages, 8 figures, submitted to A&A, comments welcome

Calculations that achieve spectroscopic accuracy, i.e., at the level of ${10}^{\ensuremath{-}4}$ or better, are rare and typically restricted to few-electron systems. Here we present high-resolution grating spectrometer measurements of 11 $2{s}_{1/2}\text{\ensuremath{-}}2{p}_{3/2}$ transitions in neonlike ${\mathrm{Ge}}^{22+}$ that distinguish between two different implementations of the many-body perturbation theory (MBPT) method, including our own. The measurements show that our implementation of the MBPT method consistently achieves spectroscopic accuracy at the ${10}^{\ensuremath{-}4}$ level for all of the measured lines. Moreover, our calculations improve the ${10}^{\ensuremath{-}3}$ accuracy of prior MBPT calculations by an order of magnitude and allow us to make greatly improved predictions of the location of potential photopumped lines in ${\mathrm{Ge}}^{22+}$. The measurements also improve on previous measurements of $2{s}_{1/2}\text{\ensuremath{-}}2{p}_{3/2}$ transitions in fluorinelike ${\mathrm{Ge}}^{23+}$ and oxygenlike ${\mathrm{Ge}}^{24+}$. Measurements of $n=2\phantom{\rule{4.pt}{0ex}}\text{to}\phantom{\rule{4.pt}{0ex}}n=3$ transitions in ${\mathrm{Al}}^{7+}$, ${\mathrm{Al}}^{8+}$, and ${\mathrm{Al}}^{9+}$ are used to support our measurement accuracy at the ${10}^{\ensuremath{-}5}$ level.

Many resonant photo-pumped X-ray laser schemes that use a strong pump line such as Ly-α or He-α to populate the upper laser state of a separate lasing material have been proposed over the last four decades but none have been demonstrated. As a first step to creating a photo-pumped X-ray laser we decided to reinvestigate some of these schemes at the Orion laser facility with the goal to demonstrate enhanced fluorescence as a first step toward creating a laser. In particular we look at using the Ly-α or He-α K lines to pump the 1s – 3p and 4p transitions in H-like Cl and see fluorescence on the 4f -3d line at 65 Å and the 3d – 2p line at 23 Å. Preliminary experiments are presented that show a modest enhancement of 40% on the 3d-2p line. As an alternative we also look at enhancing the 2p – 2s line in Ne-like Ge at 65Å using the Ly-α Mg line to photo-pump the 2s – 3p line of Ne-like Ge. Calculations are presented that suggest modest enhancements of 2.5 and recent experiments will be presented that show emission from a Ge plasma pumped by the Ly-α Mg line.

A NASA-built x-ray microcalorimeter spectrometer has been installed on the MST facility at the Wisconsin Plasma Physics Laboratory and has recorded x-ray photons emitted by impurity ions of aluminum in a majority deuterium plasma. Much of the x-ray microcalorimeter development has been driven by the needs of astrophysics missions, where imaging arrays with few-eV spectral resolution are required. The goal of our project is to adapt these single-photon-counting microcalorimeters for magnetic fusion energy research and demonstrate the value of such measurements for fusion science. Microcalorimeter spectrometers combine the best characteristics of the x-ray instrumentation currently available on fusion devices: high spectral resolution similar to an x-ray crystal spectrometer and the broadband coverage of an x-ray pulse height analysis system. Fusion experiments are increasingly employing high-Z plasma-facing components and require measurement of the concentration of all impurity ion species in the plasma. This diagnostic has the capability to satisfy this need for multi-species impurity ion data and will also contribute to measurements of impurity ion temperature and flow velocity, Zeff, and electron density. Here, we introduce x-ray microcalorimeter detectors and discuss the diagnostic capability for magnetic fusion energy experiments. We describe our experimental setup and spectrometer operation approach at MST, and we present the results from an initial measurement campaign.

During the past few years, the Orion high-resolution x-ray spectrometers have been successful tools for measuring x-ray spectra from plasmas generated in the Orion laser facility. Duplicate spectrometers also operate successfully at the Livermore EBIT-I and SuperEBIT electron beam ion traps for measuring x-ray polarization. We have recently implemented very high-quality, optically bonded, spherically bent quartz crystals to remove the structure in the x-ray image that had been observed in earlier measurements. The structure had been caused by focusing defects and limited the accuracy of our measurements. We present before and after images that show a drastic improvement. We, furthermore, have implemented a spherically bent potassium acid phthalate (KAP) crystal on one of our spectrometers. The KAP crystal was prepared in a similar fashion, and we present measurements of the N Ly-β and Ne Lyβ lines taken in first- and second-order reflections at 600 and 1200 eV, respectively. These measurements confirm that KAP crystals can be produced at a quality suitable for extending the spectral coverage to wavelengths longer than those accessible by different quartz crystals, especially those that cover the astrophysically important lines of iron.

We present absolute throughput analysis of several crystals for the Orion High-REsolution X-ray (OHREX) imaging crystal spectrometer using ray tracing and experimental measurements. The OHREX spectrometer is a high-resolution x-ray spectrometer designed to measure spectral line shapes at the Orion laser facility. The spectrometer is fielded with up to two spherical crystals simultaneously covering two independent spectral ranges. Each crystal has a nominal radius of curvature of R = 67.2 cm and is fielded at a nominal Bragg angle of 51.3°. To cover different bands of interest, several different crystals are available, including Ge (111), KAP, and several cuts of quartz, whose resolving power λ/Δλ exceeds 10 000. The calibrated response of the available crystals has previously been reported from measurements at the EBIT-I electron beam ion trap at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Here, we model the absolute throughput of each crystal using ray tracing and verify the results using experimental data for the quartz (101¯1) crystal.

Prompted by the detection of K-shell absorption or emission features in the spectra of plasma surrounding high mass X-ray binaries and black holes, recent measurements using the Livermore electron beam ion trap have focused on the energies of the n = 2 to n = 1 K-shell transitions in the L-shell ions of lithiumlike through fluorinelike silicon and sulfur. In parallel, we have made calculations of these transitions using the Flexible Atomic Code and the multi-reference Moller-Plesset (MRMP) atomic physics code. Using this code we have attempted to produce sets of theoretical atomic data with spectroscopic accuracy for all the L-shell ions of silicon and sulfur. We present results of our calculations for oxygenlike and fluorinelike silicon and compare them to the recent electron beam ion trap measurements as well as previous calculations.

We present the spectral and timing evolution of the persistent black hole X-ray binary GRS 1758-258 based on almost 12 years of observations using the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer Proportional Counter Array. While the source was predominantly found in the hard state during this time, it entered the thermally dominated soft state seven times. In the soft state GRS 1758-258 shows a strong decline in flux above 3 keV rather than the pivoting flux around 10 keV more commonly shown by black hole transients. In its 3-20 keV hardness intensity diagram, GRS 1758-258 shows a hysteresis of hard and soft state fluxes typical for transient sources in outburst. The RXTE-PCA and RXTE-ASM long-term light curves do not show any orbital modulations in the range of 2 to 30 d. However, in the dynamic power spectra significant peaks drift between 18.47d and 18.04d for the PCA data, while less significant signatures between 19d and 20d are seen for the ASM data as well as for the Swift/BAT data. We discuss different models for the hysteresis behavior during state transitions as well as possibilities for the origin of the long term variation in the context of a warped accretion disk., Comment: 12 pages, 13 figures, accepted by Astronomy & Astrophysics

We present an analysis of three Chandra High Energy Transmission Gratings observations of the black hole binary Cyg X-1/HDE 226868 at different orbital phases. The stellar wind that is powering the accretion in this system is characterized by temperature and density inhomogeneities including structures, or "clumps", of colder, more dense material embedded in the photoionized gas. As these clumps pass our line of sight, absorption dips appear in the light curve. We characterize the properties of the clumps through spectral changes during various dip stages. Comparing the silicon and sulfur absorption line regions (1.6-2.7 keV $\equiv$ 7.7-4.6 {\AA}) in four levels of varying column depth reveals the presence of lower ionization stages, i.e., colder or denser material, in the deeper dip phases. The Doppler velocities of the lines are roughly consistent within each observation, varying with the respective orbital phase. This is consistent with the picture of a structure that consists of differently ionized material, in which shells of material facing the black hole shield the inner and back shells from the ionizing radiation. The variation of the Doppler velocities compared to a toy model of the stellar wind, however, does not allow us to pin down an exact location of the clump region in the system. This result, as well as the asymmetric shape of the observed lines, point at a picture of a complex wind structure., Comment: 19 pages, 15 figures, accepted for publication in A&A

We have used an electron beam ion trap to measure electron-density-diagnostic line-intensity ratios for extreme ultraviolet lines from F XII, XIII, and XIV at wavelengths of 185-205 255-276 Angstroms. These ratios can be used as density diagnostics for astrophysical spectra and are especially relevant to solar physics. We found that density diagnostics using the Fe XIII 196.53/202.04 and the Fe XIV 264.79/274.21 and 270.52A/274.21 line ratios are reliable using the atomic data calculated with the Flexible Atomic Code. On the other hand, we found a large discrepancy between the FAC theory and experiment for the commonly used Fe XII (186.85 + 186.88)/195.12 line ratio. These FAC theory calculations give similar results to the data tabulated in CHIANTI, which are commonly used to analyze solar observations. Our results suggest that the discrepancies seen between solar coronal density measurements using the Fe XII (186.85 + 186.88)/195.12 and Fe XIII 196.54/202.04 line ratios are likely due to issues with the atomic calculations for Fe XII.

Many resonant photo-pumped X-ray laser schemes that use a strong pump line such as Ly-α or He-α to populate the upper laser state of a separate lasing material have been proposed over the last four decades but none have been demonstrated. As a first step to creating a photo-pumped X-ray laser we have decided to reinvestigate some of these schemes at the Orion laser facility with the goal to show enhanced fluorescence. In particular we look at using the Ly-α or He-α K lines to pump the 1s–3p and 4p transitions in H-like Cl and see fluorescence on the 4f–3d line at 65 A and the 3d–2p line at 23 A. Preliminary experiments are presented that show a modest enhancement. As an alternative we also look at enhancing the 2p–2s line in Ne-like Ge at 65 A using the Ly-α Mg line to photo-pump the 2s–3p line of Ne-like Ge. Calculations are presented that suggest modest enhancements of 2.5.

In an electron beam ion trap (EBIT), the ions are not confined to the electron beam, but rather oscillate in and out of the beam. As a result, the ions do not continuously experience the full density of the electron beam. To determine the effective electron density, ne,eff, experienced by the ions, the electron beam size, the nominal electron density ne, and the ion distribution around the beam, i.e., the so-called ion cloud, must be measured. We use imaging techniques in the extreme ultraviolet (EUV) and optical to determine these. The electron beam width is measured using 3d → 3p emission from Fe xii and xiii between 185 and 205 A. These transitions are fast and the EUV emission occurs only within the electron beam. The measured spatial emission profile and variable electron current yield a nominal electron density range of ne ∼ 1011–1013 cm−3. We determine the size of the ion cloud using optical emission from metastable levels of ions with radiative lifetimes longer than the ion orbital periods. The resulting emission maps out the spatial distribution of the ion cloud. We find a typical electron beam radius of ∼60 μm and an ion cloud radius of ∼300 μm. These yield a spatially averaged effective electron density, ne,eff, experienced by the ions in EBIT spanning ∼ 5 × 109–5 × 1011 cm−3.

The warm electron beam ion trap (WEBIT) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is being developed as a pre-launch, ground calibration source for space-borne, high-throughput, high-resolution x-ray spectrometers, such as the x-ray imaging and spectroscopy mission Resolve quantum calorimeter. Historically, calibration sources for calorimeter spectrometers have relied on characteristic line emission from x-ray tubes, fluorescing metals, and radioactive sources. The WEBIT, by contrast, relies on emission from x-ray transitions in highly charged ions, for example, hydrogen-like and helium-like ions, whose energies are well known and whose line shapes are relatively simple. The WEBIT can create astrophysically relevant ions whose x-ray emission falls in the 0.3-12 keV science bandpass of Resolve and has a portable design advantageous for a calibration source. The WEBIT will be used to help calibrate Resolve’s instrumental line shape and gain scale as a function of various operational parameters during both detector subsystem level testing and instrumental level testing.

The Orion high-resolution x-ray (OHREX) spectrometer has been a successful tool for measuring the shapes of density-broadened spectral lines produced in short-pulse heated plasmas at the Orion laser facility. We have recently outfitted the instrument with a charge-couple device (CCD) camera, which greatly increased the accuracy with which we can perform line-shift measurements. Because OHREX is located on the outside of the Orion target chamber, no provisions for the shielding of electromagnetic pulses are required. With the CCD, we obtained a higher signal-to-noise ratio than we previously obtained with an image-plate detector. This allowed us to observe structure in the image produced by the diffraction from the two OHREX crystals, which was highly reproducible from shot to shot. This structure will ultimately limit the accuracy of our spectroscopic measurements.

The ASTRO-H mission was designed and developed through an international collaboration of JAXA, NASA, ESA, and the CSA. It was successfully launched on February 17, 2016, and then named Hitomi. During the in-orbit verification phase, the on-board observational instruments functioned as expected. The intricate coolant and refrigeration systems for soft X-ray spectrometer (SXS, a quantum micro-calorimeter) and soft X-ray imager (SXI, an X-ray CCD) also functioned as expected. However, on March 26, 2016, operations were prematurely terminated by a series of abnormal events and mishaps triggered by the attitude control system. These errors led to a fatal event: the loss of the solar panels on the Hitomi mission. The X-ray Astronomy Recovery Mission (or, XARM) is proposed to regain the key scientific advances anticipated by the international collaboration behind Hitomi. XARM will recover this science in the shortest time possible by focusing on one of the main science goals of Hitomi,“Resolving astrophysical problems by precise high-resolution X-ray spectroscopy”.1 This decision was reached after evaluating the performance of the instruments aboard Hitomi and the mission’s initial scientific results, and considering the landscape of planned international X-ray astrophysics missions in 2020’s and 2030’s. Hitomi opened the door to high-resolution spectroscopy in the X-ray universe. It revealed a number of discrepancies between new observational results and prior theoretical predictions. Yet, the resolution pioneered by Hitomi is also the key to answering these and other fundamental questions. The high spectral resolution realized by XARM will not offer mere refinements; rather, it will enable qualitative leaps in astrophysics and plasma physics. XARM has therefore been given a broad scientific charge: “Revealing material circulation and energy transfer in cosmic plasmas and elucidating evolution of cosmic structures and objects”. To fulfill this charge, four categories of science objectives that were defined for Hitomi will also be pursued by XARM; these include (1) Structure formation of the Universe and evolution of clusters of galaxies; (2) Circulation history of baryonic matters in the Universe; (3) Transport and circulation of energy in the Universe; (4) New science with unprecedented high resolution X-ray spectroscopy. In order to achieve these scientific objectives, XARM will carry a 6 × 6 pixelized X-ray micro-calorimeter on the focal plane of an X-ray mirror assembly, and an aligned X-ray CCD camera covering the same energy band and a wider field of view. This paper introduces the science objectives, mission concept, and observing plan of XARM.

We present the first high-resolution laboratory spectra of X-ray emission following L-shell charge exchange between nickel ions and neutral H2 and He. We employ the commonly used charge exchange models found in XSPEC and SPEX, ACX and SPEX-CX, to simulate our experimental results. We show that significant differences between data and models exist in both line energies and strengths. In particular, we find that configuration mixing may play an important role in generating lines from core-excited states, and may be improperly treated in models. Our results indicate that if applied to astrophysical data, these models may lead to incorrect assumptions of the physical and chemical parameters of the region of interest., Comment: 14 pages, 4 figures, 1 table

Uncertainties in atomic models will introduce noticeable additional systematics in calculating the flux of weak dielectronic recombination (DR) satellite lines, affecting the detection and flux measurements of other weak spectral lines. One important example is the Ar XVII He-beta DR, which is expected to be present in emission from the hot intracluster medium (ICM) of galaxy clusters and could impact measurements of the flux of the 3.5 keV line that has been suggested as a secondary emission from a dark matter interaction. We perform a set of experiments using the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's electron beam ion trap (EBIT-I) and the X-Ray Spectrometer quantum calorimeter (XRS/EBIT), to test the Ar XVII He-beta DR origin of the 3.5 keV line. We measured the X-ray emission following resonant DR onto helium-like and lithium-like Argon using EBIT-I's Maxwellian simulator mode at a simulated electron temperature of Te=1.74 keV. The measured flux of the Ar XVII He-beta DR lined is too weak to account for the flux in the 3.5 keV line assuming reasonable plasma parameters. We, therefore, rule out Ar XVII He-beta DR as a significant contributor to the 3.5 keV line. A comprehensive comparison between the atomic theory and the EBIT experiment results is also provided., Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ. 11 pages, 5 figures

One of the first questions that should be considered to adequately describe radiation of high Z ions from High Energy Density (HED) plasmas and from even more extreme environments is: “How can we calculate and, most importantly, validate atomic properties and spectra of complex, high Z, highly charged ions in non-equilibrium as a function of plasma parameters and electron distribution function?” To contribute to answering this challenging question, we present a comprehensive experimental and theoretical study of the line emission from Mo HED plasmas benchmarked with LLNL EBIT data. Though there were some studies of Mo line radiation from pulsed power plasmas produced at UNR, Cornel University, and SNL before, there was no benchmarking with EBIT data. The analysis of X-ray spectra from high-Z HED plasma is always a very challenging topic because of contributions from numerous ionization stages and from multiple atomic processes in the plasma, such as, for example, dielectronic recombination, that is impossible to resolve in a rather narrow spectral range. We performed two types of Mo experiments at both the LLNL EBIT and at the Z-pinch generator at NTF/UNR to study line radiation in a spectral range between 3.5 and 5.5 A. In particular, benchmarking experiments at the LLNL EBIT with Mo ions produced at electron beam energies from 2.75 keV up to 15 keV allowed us to break down these very complicated spectra into spectra with only few ionization stages and to select processes that influence them. The EBIT data were recorded using the EBIT Calorimeter Spectrometer and a crystal spectrometer with a Ge crystal. X-ray Mo spectra and pinhole images were collected from Z-pinch plasmas produced from various wire loads to provide different levels of opacity and electron beam effects. Non-LTE modeling and high-precision relativistic data were used to analyze L-shell Mo spectra from both experimental campaigns: an almost monoenergetic electron distribution function (EDF) for EBIT data and Maxwellian and non-Maxwellian EDFs for modeling of HED plasma spectra. The influence of different plasma processes including electron beams on Mo line radiation is summarized.

We report a systematic measurement of the ${(2{p}_{1/2}^{\ensuremath{-}1}3{d}_{3/2})}_{J=1}$ and ${(2{s}_{1/2}^{\ensuremath{-}1}3{p}_{1/2})}_{J=1}$ levels in 14 neonlike ions between ${\mathrm{Ba}}^{46+}$ and ${\mathrm{Pb}}^{72+}$ and document the effects of their avoided crossing near $Z=68$. Strong mixing affects the oscillator strengths over a surprisingly wide range of atomic numbers and leads to the vanishing of one transition two atomic numbers below the crossing. The crossing voids the otherwise correct expectation that the ${(2{p}_{1/2}^{\ensuremath{-}1}3{d}_{3/2})}_{J=1}$ level energy is only weakly affected by quantum electrodynamics (QED). For about 10 atomic numbers surrounding the crossing, its QED contributions are anomalously large, attaining almost equality to those affecting the ${(2{s}_{1/2}^{\ensuremath{-}1}3{p}_{1/2})}_{J=1}$ level. As a result, the accuracy of energy level calculations appears compromised near the crossing.

The Orion high-resolution X-ray (OHREX) imaging spherically bent crystal spectrometer, operated with both image plates and CCD cameras, provides time-averaged plasma diagnostics through high-resolution spectroscopy with good signal-to-noise at the Orion laser facility. In order to provide time-resolved spectra, the OHREX will be outfitted with a streak camera, and in this case, even higher signal to noise will be desired. Using the OHREX’s sister instrument, the EBIT High-resolution X-ray (EBHiX) spectrometer, at the LLNL electron beam ion trap EBIT-I, we therefore compare the efficiency of a high-quality Ge (111) crystal (2d = 6.532 A) with that of a higher integrated reflectivity, but lower-resolution highly annealed pyrolytic graphite (HAPG) crystal (2d = 6.708 A) in the energy range 2408–2452 eV. We find that the HAPG provides overall more signal across the entire image; however, because of the much better focusing properties of the Ge crystal, the latter provides more signal within the central 100 μm of the spatial profile in the cross-dispersion direction and is thus more suitable for the narrow entrance window of the Livermore-built streak camera.

The accretion onto the black hole in the system HDE 226868/Cygnus X-1 is powered by the strong line driven stellar wind of the O-type donor star. We study the X-ray properties of the stellar wind in the hard state of Cyg X-1 as determined with data from the Chandra High Energy Transmission Gratings. Large density and temperature inhomogeneities are present in the wind, with a fraction of the wind consisting of clumps of matter with higher density and lower temperature embedded in a photoionized gas. Absorption dips observed in the light curve are believed to be caused by these clumps. This work concentrates on the non-dip spectra as a function of orbital phase. The spectra show lines of H-like and He-like ions of S, Si, Na, Mg, Al and highly ionized Fe (Fe xvii-Fe xxiv). We measure velocity shifts, column densities, and thermal broadening of the line series. The excellent quality of these five observations allows us to investigate the orbital phase dependence of these parameters. We show that the absorber is located close to the black hole. Doppler shifted lines point at a complex wind structure in this region, while emission lines seen in some observations are from a denser medium than the absorber. The observed line profiles are phase dependent. Their shapes vary from pure, symmetric absorption at the superior conjunction to P Cygni profiles at the inferior conjunction of the black hole., Comment: A&A, accepted (26 pages, 18 figures)

We have measured the 3s1/2-3p3/2 transition in sodiumlike Eu52+ situated at 41.232 A with an uncertainty of 73 ppm. Our measurement extends previous high-precision measurements into the 56< Z< 78 range of atomic numbers. We also present measurements of 3s1/2-3p3/2 and 3p1/2-3d3/2 transitions in the neighboring magnesiumlike, aluminumlike, and siliconlike europium ions.

We have designed and implemented a neutral metal vapor injector on the SuperEBIT high-energy electron beam ion trap at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. A horizontally directed vapor of a europium metal is created using a thermal evaporation technique. The metal vapor is then spatially collimated prior to injection into the trap. The source's form and quantity constraints are significantly reduced making plasmas out of metal with vapor pressures ≤10(-7) Torr at ≥1000 °C more obtainable. A long pulsed or constant feed metal vapor injection method adds new flexibility by varying the timing of injection and rate of material being introduced into the trap.

Photoabsorption by and fluorescence of the K{\alpha} transitions in highly charged iron ions are essential mechanisms for X-ray radiation transfer in astrophysical environments. We study photoabsorption due to the main K{\alpha} transitions in highly charged iron ions from heliumlike to fluorinelike (Fe 24+...17+) using monochromatic X-rays around 6.6 keV at the PETRA III synchrotron photon source. Natural linewidths were determined with hitherto unattained accuracy. The observed transitions are of particular interest for the understanding of photoexcited plasmas found in X-ray binaries and active galactic nuclei., Comment: Revised version

We present a scheme to determine the spectral state of the canonical black hole Cyg X-1 using data from previous and current X-ray all sky monitors (RXTE-ASM, Swift-BAT, MAXI, and Fermi-GBM). State determinations of the hard/intermediate and soft state agree to better than 10% between different monitors, facilitating the determination of the state and its context for any observation of the source, potentially over the lifetimes of different individual monitors. A separation of the hard and the intermediate state, which strongly differ in their spectral shape and short-term timing behavior, is only possible when monitor data in the soft X-rays (, A&A accepted on 05/03/2013, 12 pages, 11 figures

We have used the EBIT-I electron beam ion trap at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and a duplicate Orion High Resolution X-ray Spectrometer (OHREX) to measure the relative efficiency of a spherically bent quartz (101̄1) crystal (2d = 6.687 Å) and a spherically bent germanium (111) crystal (2d = 6.532 Å). L-shell X-ray photons from highly charged molybdenum ions generated in EBIT-I were simultaneously focussed and Bragg reflected by each crystal, both housed in a single spectrometer, onto a single CCD X-ray detector. The flux from each crystal was then directly compared. Our results show that the germanium crystal has a reflection efficiency significantly better than the quartz crystal, however, the energy resolution is significantly worse. Moreover, we find that the spatial focussing properties of the germanium crystal are worse than those of the quartz crystal. Details of the experiment are presented, and we discuss the advantages of using either crystal on a streak-camera equipped OHREX spectrometer.

We describe a crystal spectrometer implemented on the Livermore electron beam ion traps that employ two spherically bent quartz crystals and a cryogenically cooled back-illuminated charge-coupled device detector to measure x rays with a nominal resolving power of λ/Δλ ≥ 10 000. Its focusing properties allow us to record x rays either with the plane of dispersion perpendicular or parallel to the electron beam and, thus, to preferentially select one of the two linear x-ray polarization components. Moreover, by choice of dispersion plane and focussing conditions, we use the instrument either to image the distribution of the ions within the 2 cm long trap region, or to concentrate x rays of a given energy to a point on the detector, which optimizes the signal-to-noise ratio. We demonstrate the operation and utility of the new instrument by presenting spectra of Mo34+, which prepares the instrument for use as a core impurity diagnostic on the NSTX-U spherical torus and other magnetic fusion devices that employ molybdenum as plasma facing components.

X-ray spectroscopy is a useful tool for diagnosing plasma sources due to its non-invasive nature. One such source is the dense plasma focus (DPF). Recent interest has developed to demonstrate its potential application as a soft x-ray source. We present the first spectroscopic studies of krypton high energy density plasmas produced on a 3 kJ DPF device in Singapore. In order to diagnose spectral features, and to obtain a more comprehensive understanding of plasma parameters, a new non-local thermodynamic equilibrium L-shell kinetic model for krypton was developed. It has the capability of incorporating hot electrons, with different electron distribution functions, in order to examine the effects that they have on emission spectra. To further substantiate the validity of this model, it is also benchmarked with data gathered from experiments on the electron beam ion trap (EBIT) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where data were collected using the high resolution EBIT calorimeter spectrometer.

We report the calibration of the Orion High-Resolution X-ray (OHREX) imaging crystal spectrometer at the EBIT-I electron beam ion trap at Livermore. Two such instruments, dubbed OHREX-1 and OHREX-2, are fielded for plasma diagnostics at the Orion laser facility in the United Kingdom. The OHREX spectrometer can simultaneously house two spherically bent crystals with a radius of curvature of r = 67.2 cm. The focusing properties of the spectrometer allow both for larger distance to the source due to the increase in collected light and for observation of extended sources. OHREX is designed to cover a 2.5°–3° spectral range at Bragg angles around 51.3°. The typically high resolving powers at these large Bragg angles are ideally suited for line shape diagnostics. For instance, the nominal resolving power of the instrument (>10 000) is much higher than the effective resolving power associated with the Doppler broadening due to the temperature of the trapped ions in EBIT-I. The effective resolving power is only around 3000 at typical EBIT-I conditions, which nevertheless is sufficient to set up and test the instrument’s spectral characteristics. We have calibrated the spectral range for a number of crystals using well known reference lines in the first and second order and derived the ion temperatures from these lines. We have also made use of the 50 μm size of the EBIT-I source width to characterize the spatial focusing of the spectrometer.

We characterized the dissociation fraction of a thermal dissociation atomic hydrogen source by injecting the mixed atomic and molecular output of the source into an electron beam ion trap containing highly charged ions and recording the x-ray spectrum generated by charge exchange using a high-resolution x-ray calorimeter spectrometer. We exploit the fact that the charge exchange state-selective capture cross sections are very different for atomic and molecular hydrogen incident on the same ions, enabling a clear spectroscopic diagnostic of the neutral species.

We have developed a high-resolution x-ray spectrometer for measuring the shapes of spectral lines produced from laser-irradiated targets on the Orion laser facility. The instrument utilizes a spherically bent crystal geometry to spatially focus and spectrally analyze photons from foil or microdot targets. The high photon collection efficiency resulting from its imaging properties allows the instrument to be mounted outside the Orion chamber, where it is far less sensitive to particles, hard x-rays, or electromagnetic pulses than instruments housed close to the target chamber center in ten-inch manipulators. Moreover, Bragg angles above 50° are possible, which provide greatly improved spectral resolution compared to radially viewing, near grazing-incidence crystal spectrometers. These properties make the new instrument an ideal lineshape diagnostic for determining plasma temperature and density. We describe its calibration on the Livermore electron beam ion trap facility and present spectral data of the K-shell emission from highly charged sulfur produced by long-pulse as well as short-pulse beams on the Orion laser in the United Kingdom.

We have identified a previously unassigned pair of lines between 169 and 170 A in the coronae of cool stars. We attribute these lines to Fe xiv and show that their intensity ratio is sensitive to the electron density. Using observations taken with the Low Energy Transmission Grating Spectrometer of the Chandra X-ray Observatory we infer a density of log(ne/cm−3) = 10.2 ± 0.7 and 10.3 ± 0.8 from the newly identified line pair in the coronae of Procyon and α Cen A, respectively.

Binary systems with an accreting compact object are a unique chance to investigate the strong, clumpy, line-driven winds of early type supergiants by using the compact object's X-rays to probe the wind structure. We analyze the two-component wind of HDE 226868, the O9.7Iab giant companion of the black hole Cyg X-1 using 4.77 Ms of RXTE observations of the system taken over the course of 16 years. Absorption changes strongly over the 5.6 d binary orbit, but also shows a large scatter at a given orbital phase, especially at superior conjunction. The orbital variability is most prominent when the black hole is in the hard X-ray state. Our data are poorer for the intermediate and soft state, but show signs for orbital variability of the absorption column in the intermediate state. We quantitatively compare the data in the hard state to a toy model of a focussed Castor-Abbott-Klein-wind: as it does not incorporate clumping, the model does not describe the observations well. A qualitative comparison to a simplified simulation of clumpy winds with spherical clumps shows good agreement in the distribution of the equivalent hydrogen column density for models with a porosity length on the order of the stellar radius at inferior conjunction; we conjecture that the deviations between data and model at superior conjunction could be either due to lack of a focussed wind component in the model or a more complicated clump structure., Comment: proposed for acceptance in A&A, 11 pages, 11 figures (two in appendix)

We present spectroscopic measurements of the M-shell emission of highly charged europium performed at the Livermore SuperEBIT electron beam ion trap facility using the EBIT Calorimeter Spectrometer (ECS). There is significant blending among the emission lines from the different charge states but despite the complexity of the observed spectra we have successfully identified the ten brightest n = 4 ? 3 transitions from sodium-like Eu52+ utilizing the Flexible Atomic Code (FAC). We find that the difference between the calculated and measured transition energies for these ten Eu52+ lines does not exceed 3 eV. In fact, for four of the identified lines we find agreement within the measured uncertainties. Additional comparison with semi-empirical transition-energy predictions for sodium-like ions from laser-generated plasmas is included and shows that overall the semi-empirical predicted values for the transition energies are slightly higher than the measured values, while the FAC values that didnt agree with the measured transition energies are almost 1 eV lower than the measured values.

A high-resolution grazing-incidence grating spectrometer has been implemented on the Livermore electron beam ion traps for performing very high-resolution measurements in the soft x-ray and extreme ultraviolet region spanning from below 10 Å to above 300 Å. The instrument operates without an entrance slit and focuses the light emitted by highly charged ions located in the roughly 50 μm wide electron beam onto a cryogenically cooled back-illuminated charge-coupled device detector. The measured line widths are below 0.025 Å above 100 Å, and the resolving power appears to be limited by the source size and Doppler broadening of the trapped ions. Comparisons with spectra obtained with existing grating spectrometers show an order of magnitude improvement in spectral resolution.