Atomic Structure and Scattering: Comparative Theoretical Calculations and Uncertainties

Dear Colleagues,

Atomic processes, such as radiative transition, electron-impact excitation/deexcitation, ionization and recombination, and photoexcitation, are useful for spectroscopic modeling of a variety of plasmas, including astrophysical, fusion, lasing, and industrial. Since most of the data for these processes are neither available experimentally nor are easily measurable, the desired results are obtained theoretically, using a variety of (structure and collision) codes, based on non-relativistic or relativistic, configuration-interaction or full variational, and perturbative or close coupled ab-initio and scaling methods. However, some of the requirements for the data are not only for their completeness, but also their accuracy and reliability, which have become major concerns in the past few years, because large discrepancies in almost all atomic parameters are often noted. Furthermore, data are required for a wide range of elements and their ions for which collaborative global efforts are necessary. Therefore, this Special Issue will help to find insights to resolve discrepancies and to have consistency among different calculations, so that data can be confidently used for applications. Towards this goal, we invite reports, reviews of recent calculations and/or measurements, and even fresh original work for various atomic systems by many different structure, collision, and collisional-radiative modeling codes and models. A special emphasis is desired for comparisons, among the calculational tools and data, and realistic estimates of uncertainties and/or accuracies. We encourage all theoreticians and experimentalists who specialize in atomic and molecular physics to make contributions to this Special Issue.

All contributed papers will undergo the standard peer reviewing process of the journal and will be published in a single issue towards the end of the year 2020. To make its publication feasible and to make the issue a source of reference for years to come, contributions are invited, through the journal website, latest by 31 March 2020. Furthermore, the first 5 submitted (and accepted) papers before this date, but well prepared according to the journal’s standard, which will not require extensive editorial corrections, will be free of Article Processing Charges (APC). The remaining contributed papers will only be eligible for 50% discount on APC. Papers submitted after this date may not be included in the Special Issue but will continue to be processed for the regular issue/s of the journal, but with full payment of the APC.

Dr. Kanti M. Aggarwal
Dr. Duck-Hee Kwon
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Atoms is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1500 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.