Electron impact broadening of Si IV spectral lines: Comparison with recent experiments

Electron impact widths of eight Si IV spectral lines have been calculated using our quantum mechanical method. Semiclassical perturbation calculations using atomic data from the SUPERSTRUCTURE code have been also performed. Comparison with recent measurements shows that they are always lower than our quantum mechanical, semiclassical perturbation and all other theoretical results. A disagreement in the importance of fine structure effects between our results and the measured ones has been reported here.

► We perform new quantum mechanical calculations for the Si IV line widths. ► We compare our results with the most recent experimental ones. ► We discuss the importance of fine structure effects on the line widths. ► The importance of these effects in our work disagrees with measurements.