Semiempirical confrontations between theory and experiment in highly ionised complex atoms

Highly ionised complex atoms, which have many electrons stripped away but many electrons still remaining, are presently a subject of vigorous experimental study. The high precision experimentally attainable for these systems suggests their use in the investigation of higher order theoretical processes, and the specification of these interactions is essential to the development of reliable predictive methods. It is shown that parametric reductions which combine ab initio theoretical calculations with experimental observations can yield predictions of much higher precision than could be obtained from either source separately. These formulations also reveal subtle regularities in the measured data that are not exhibited by the corresponding computations, which suggest possible calculational improvements.