Abstract
Interaction of radiation with matter has been a pervasive causal phenomenon in the universe since the “Big Bang.” It unites physics and astronomy and has led to major discoveries in astrophysics. Opacity is a property of matter that determines its resistance to the transmission of radiation (or, more comprehensively, its resistance to energy transport by photons and elementary particles). It plays an important role in the formation, evolution, and structure of stars. For example, photon opacity provides the dominant obstacle to energy transport during star formation in the inner, opaque region of an accretion disk and later during nuclear burning of hydrogen and helium in the core of the star. Thus, opacity regulates the evolution of the universe since its creation. For this reason the principal investigators of opacities have been astrophysicists.
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Notes
- 1.
Also known simply as the “atomic model.” It is the predecessor of the “mean ion model with term and fine structure splitting.”
- 2.
Also referred to as the “method of detailed configuration accounting” or “ionic model.” It is the predecessor of the “method of detailed configuration accounting with explicit term splitting.”
- 3.
Radiative transfer in liquids and solids is not considered here.
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Huebner, W.F., Barfield, W.D. (2014). Introduction. In: Opacity. Astrophysics and Space Science Library, vol 402. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-8797-5_1
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