Critically Evaluated Atomic Data for the Au iv Spectrum

Abstract A spectral investigation of triply ionized gold (Au iv ) has been carried out in the wavelength region of 500–2106 Å. The gold spectra were photographed at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, USA, on a 10.7 m normal incidence vacuum spectrograph (NIVS) using a sliding spark source as well as on a 3 m NIVS at the Antigonish laboratory in Canada with a triggered spark source. Our analysis is theoretically supported by the pseudorelativistic Hartree–Fock (HFR) formalism with a superposition of configuration interactions implemented in Cowan's suite of codes. Radiative transition parameters are also calculated using the HFR+CPOL (core polarization effects) model and the multiconfiguration Dirac–Hartree–Fock approach, and their comparisons are used to evaluate the transition rate data. All the previously reported levels of the 5 d 8 , 5 d 7 6 s , and 5 d 7 6 p configurations are confirmed, except one, and three are newly established. The missing 1 S 0 level of 5 d 8 is now established at 55,277.8 cm −1 . A total of 981 observed lines (E1 type), classified to 1031 transitions, including 133 newly identified, enabled us to optimize 139 energy levels. Several astrophysically important transitions, forbidden (M1- and E2-type) lines of 5 d 8 and 5 d 7 6 s , are provided with their Ritz wavelengths and radiative parameters. A critically evaluated set of energy levels, observed and Ritz wavelengths along with their uncertainties, transition rates, and uniformly scaled intensities of Au iv lines have been presented. Also, large-scale atomic data to compute the opacity of Au iv in the kilonova ejecta have been supplemented in this work.