The role of particular collision and radiative processes in recombination

Rate equations for level populations of atomic hydrogen are solved to obtain collisional-radiative recombination coefficients. Several particular collision and radiative processes entering the rate equations have been accounted for or have been suppressed in order to obtain information on how strongly the solution depends on the different assumptions. Under certain conditions the results differ by orders of magnitude. The results also vary strongly with the number of quantum levelsp entering the rate equations. The critical quantum numbern ^* which defines the limit for partial L.T.E. cannot be considered as the critical number of rate equations above which the population coefficients become independent ofp.