Time-dependent and radiation field effects on collisional-radiative simulations of radiative properties of blast waves launched in clusters of xenon

•Analysis of plasma level populations and radiative properties of blast waves in xenon.•LTE, steady-state or time-dependent NLTE simulations and their effects.•LTE approach is not accurate.•Stationary NLTE and time-dependent shock front simulations are close.•External field effects are relevant for radiative precursor analysis.

Radiative shock waves are ubiquitous throughout the universe and play a crucial role in the transport of energy into the interstellar medium. This fact has led to many efforts to scale the astrophysical phenomena to accessible conditions. In some laboratory experiments radiative blast waves are launched in clusters of gases by means of the direct deposition of the laser energy. In this work, by using a collisional-radiative model, we perform an analysis of the plasma level populations and radiative properties of a blast wave launched in a xenon cluster. In particular, for both the shocked and unshocked material, we study the influence of different effects such as LTE, steady-state or time-dependent NLTE simulations, plasma self-absorption or external radiation field in the determination of those properties and also in the diagnosis of the electron temperature of the blast wave.