Accelerated recombination due to resonant deexcitation of metastable states

In a recombining plasma the metastable states are known to accumulate population thereby slowing down the recombination process. We show that an account of the doubly excited autoionizing states, formed due to collisional recombination of metastable ions, results in a significant acceleration of recombination. A fully time-dependent collisional-radiative (CR) modeling for stripped ions of carbon recombining in a cold dense plasma demonstrates an order of magnitude faster recombination of He-like ions. The CR model used in calculations is discussed in detail. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.