KAPPA: A PACKAGE FOR SYNTHESIS OF OPTICALLY THIN SPECTRA FOR THE NON-MAXWELLIAN κ-DISTRIBUTIONS BASED ON THE CHIANTI DATABASE

Non-Maxwellian kappa-distributions have been detected in the solar transition region and in flares. These distributions are characterized by a high-energy tail and a near-Maxwellian core and are known to have a significant impact on the resulting optically thin spectra arising from collisionally dominated astrophysical plasmas. We developed the KAPPA package for the synthesis of such line and continuum spectra. The package is based on the freely available CHIANTI database and software, and can be used in a similar manner. Ionization and recombination rates together with the ionization equilibria are provided for a range of kappa values. Distribution-averaged collision strengths for excitation are obtained using an approximate method for all transitions in all ions available within CHIANTI. The validity of this approximate method is tested through a comparison with direct calculations. Typical precisions of better than 5% are found with all cases being within 10%. Tools for the calculation of synthetic line and continuum intensities are provided and described. Examples of the synthetic spectra and SDO/AIA responses to emission for the kappa-distributions are given.