Ground work supporting the codes based upon the frequency fluctuation model
Résumé
The development of the frequency fluctuation model (FFM) had two strong motivations. First, there was interest to model line shapes accounting for ion dynamics and second the inclusion of higher order radiative processes in plasmas was considered important for future development. The FFM relies on the hypothesis that the emitter-plasma system behaves approximately like a pseudo-molecule embedded into a thermal bath. As a result, the pseudo-system can be considered to have internal states connected to each others by collisions with the bath. This simple starting point has been translated into a powerful renormalization process, called FFM, resulting, a few years ago, in a fast line shape code called Pim Pam Poum (PPP) and more recently into a code for the computation of radiative redistribution. The authors present a few of the milestones in this evolution.