Interference effects and Stark broadening in XUV intrashell transitions in aluminum under conditions of intense XUV free-electron-laser irradiation

Quantum mechanical interference effects in the line broadening of intrashell transitions are investigated for dense plasma conditions. Simulations that involved LSJ-split level structure and intermediate coupling discovered unexpected strong line narrowing for intrashell transitions L-L while M-L transitions remained practically unaffected by interference effects. This behavior allows a robust study of line narrowing in dense plasmas. Simulations are carried out for XUV transitions of aluminum that have recently been observed in experiments with the FLASH free-electron laser in Hamburg irradiating solid aluminum samples with intensities greater than 1016 W/cm2. We explore the advantageous case of Al that allows, first, simultaneous observation of M-L transitions and L-L intrashell transitions with high-resolution grating spectrometers and, second, has a convenient threshold to study interference effects at densities much below solid. Finally, we present simulations at near solid density where the line emission transforms into a quasicontinuum.