Accurate determination of the free-free Gaunt factor - II. Relativistic Gaunt factors

When modelling an ionized plasma, all spectral synthesis codes need the thermally averaged free-free Gaunt factor defined over a very wide range of parameter space in order to produce an accurate prediction for the spectrum. Until now no data set exists that would meet these needs completely. We have therefore produced a table of relativistic Gaunt factors over a much wider range of parameter space than has ever been produced before. We present tables of the thermally averaged Gaunt factor covering the range (10)log gamma(2) = -6 to 10 and (10)log u = -16 to 13 for all atomic numbers Z = 1 through 36. The data were calculated using the relativistic Bethe-Heitler-Elwert (BHE) approximation and were subsequently merged with accurate non-relativistic results in those parts of the parameter space where the BHE approximation is not valid. These data will be incorporated in the next major release of the spectral synthesis code CLOUDY. We also produced tables of the frequency integrated Gaunt factor covering the parameter space (10)log gamma(2) = -6 to + 10 for all values of Z between 1 and 36. All the data presented in this paper are available online.