A theoretical investigation of population inversion in C IV recombining plasmas cooled by adiabatic expansion has been carried out. The non-equilibrium plasma is simulated on computer using the Collisional-Radiative model which requires rate coefficients for basic physical plasma processes. We show how gain per unit length is computed and why large gains occur only in limited regions of parameter space (ne, Te) we then compare these results with astronomical evidence. We also show how the rate coefficients and ionization equilibrium are computed.
There is an HTML version of this paper.
Also there is an electronic version of this thesis in TEX and in PostScript formats.