Atomic Energy Levels and Spectra: Astronomical Needs

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Abstract
The astronomer’s requirements for atomic data are so massive that it is not easy to approach this subject in a way that will sound responsible to someone who is not thoroughly familiar with the situation. The simple truth is that there is hardly an atomic species, neutral or ionized, for which additional data is not urgently needed in some domain of astronomy. This comes about partly because of the high temperatures and very long path lengths in astronomical objects which can make them extremely powerful light sources. More generally, we can say that conditions in the astronomer’s violent universe manage to render large volumes of phase space available to the atoms which occupy it. While the truth is that we need to know “everything,” one task of the present paper is to cast this need in a pragmatic form. This will be done by reviewing certain problems in the very recent history of astronomical spectroscopy, where real progress has come about as a result of new work on atomic spectra. Many of the illustrative problems are taken from the spectroscopy of upper main sequence, chemically peculiar or CP stars.

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