Large scale CIV3 calculations of fine-structure energy levels, oscillator strengths, and lifetimes in Fe XIV and Ni XVI

We have performed large scale CIV3 calculations of excitation energies from ground states for 109 fine-structure levels as well as of oscillator strengths and radiative decay rates for all electric-dipole-allowed and intercombination transitions among the (1s22s22p6)3s23p(2P0), 3s3p2(2S, 2P, 2D, 4P), 3s23d(2D), 3p3(4S0, 2P0, 2D0), 3s3p(3P0)3d(2P0, 2D0, 2F0, 4P0, 4D0, 4F0), 3s3p(1P0)3d(2P0, 2D0, 2F0), 3p2(1S)3d(2D), 3p2(1D)3d(2S, 2P, 2D), 3p2(3P)3d(2P, 2D, 4P), 3s3d2(2S, 2P, 2D, 4P), 3p3d2(1S)(2P0), 3p3d2(1D)(2P0, 2D0, 2F0), 3p3d2(1G)(2F0), 3p3d2(3P)(2P0, 2D0, 4S0, 4P0, 4D0), 3p3d2(3F)(2D0, 2F0, 4D0, 4F0), 3s24s(2S), 3s24p(2P0), 3s24d(2D), 3s24f(2F0), 3s3p(3P0)4s(2P0, 4P0), and 3s3p(1P0)4s(2P0) states of Fe XIV and Ni XVI. These states are represented by very extensive configuration-interaction (CI) wavefunctions obtained using the CIV3 computer code of Hibbert. The relativistic effects in intermediate coupling are incorporated by means of the Breit-Pauli Hamiltonian which consists of the nonrelativistic term plus the one-body mass correction, Darwin term, and spin-orbit, spin-other-orbit, and spin-spin operators. The errors which often occur with sophisticated ab initio atomic structure calculations are reduced. Our calculated excitation energies, including their ordering, are in excellent agreement with the available experimental results for both of the ions studied. From our transition probabilities, we have also calculated radiative lifetimes of the lowest 37 fine-structure levels in Fe XIV and Ni XVI and compared them with available theoretical and experimental results. The mixing among several fine-structure levels is found to be so strong that the correct identification of these levels becomes very difficult. We predict new data for several levels where no other theoretical and/or experimental results are available. We hope that our extensive calculations will be useful to experimentalists in identifying the fine-structure levels in their future work.