recombination line

…faint emission lines that follow recombination, the process by which the higher stage of ionization captures an electron (usually at low energies) into a high level of the ion. Following recombination, there is a cascade from the high energy levels to the ground state, with photons in the observed emission…

excited forbidden lines and faint recombination lines of other ions. (Recombination is the process in which an atom at a high stage of excitation captures a lower energy electron and then drops into a lower stage of excitation.) The central stars show a much greater range of temperatures than those…

…of heavy elements from faint recombination lines as opposed to those determined from collisionally excited lines, but in a much more severe form. There are some nebulae for which the two methods give the same abundances. However, the most extreme discrepancies are factors of 30 or more in the oxygen…