Mechanisms of nuclear excitation in plasmas

This paper discusses several mechanisms that could be responsible for nuclear excitation in a plasma of temperature of order 10--100 eV. Four mechanisms discussed in detail are nuclear excitation by a resonant electronic transition from an excited bound state to a lower-lying bound state, nuclear excitation by electron capture from the continuum, photoexcitation, and inelastic electron scattering. Estimates of the rates for these different processes are presented for the excitation of ${}^{235m}\mathrm{U}$ for which the present experimental data lacks adequate theoretical interpretation.