Ian Czekala teaches a physical account of heating and cooling in H II regions. His nebular energy balance distinguishes the energy spent removing an electron from an atom from the excess photon energy that becomes electron kinetic energy.
In the lecture's account, photoionization supplies heating, while radiative recombination and collisional excitation followed by photon emission remove thermal energy. Balancing these processes determines the gas temperature. This explains why neither the ionization threshold nor the typical photon energy alone specifies the equilibrium temperature.[ref]
Figure 1.
Portrait of Ian Czekala
. External portrait linked from the identified institutional or researcher profile. Source.

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