The Los Alamos National Laboratory MOLecular OPacity (MOLOP) Suite of Codes – Application to Air Plasma*

Modeling low-temperature plasmas generally relies on the input of kinetic data for both atoms and molecules, e.g. collision cross sections and radiative-data. Recently we developed the MOLOP suite [1], which is a robust suite of codes capable of modeling diatomic molecules to calculate their electronic, vibrational or rovibrationally resolved radiative-data (emission rates, absorption cross sections, opacities, etc.). Coupling this code with other opacity codes (at LANL), we are able to construct opacity tables that include contributions of atoms, ions, diatomic and polyatomic molecules. Here we provide a brief overview of the physics required to calculate molecular opacities, present results of different molecular opacity contributions, and finally present results of a completed air opacity table.

[1] M. C. Zammit et al. J. Phys. B: At. Mol. Opt. Phys. 55, 184002 (2022).