There are extensive spectroscopic and other atomic or molecular data in computer-readable files in various laboratories, but the proportion of these that are network-accessible is still small. A bibliography of Atomic Data through to June 1992 was given by Butler (1993), and reviews of the ``gray'' literature on atomic data have recently been given by Martin (1992a,1992b) and Smith (1993). These papers contain many useful addresses and references.
The Atomic Energy Levels Data Center and the Data Center on Atomic Transition Probabilities at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) are building an atomic spectroscopic database for astronomy. This database includes energy-level, wavelength, and transition probability data mainly fom the more recent compilations published by the two NIST Centers, as described in sections II and III of Smith and Wiese (1992). These are planned to be made available through the NASA Astrophysics Data System (§3.4.1.).
Two collections of atomic data are available at the Queen's University, Belfast, one on electron impact excitation of atoms and ions, the other on photo-absorption data for atoms and ions, the so-called ``opacity project'' (OP). The latter collection is more relevant to astronomy, containing, for example, oscillator strengths. The OP is a collaborative project involving institutions in the USA, France, Venezuela and Germany as well as the UK. It comprises approximately 1 GB of data held as ASCII text files. The resulting so-called TOPBASE database is experimentally available from 1993 at CDS Strasbourg. Look in the directory cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr:pub/topbase (130.79.128.5). A Read.Me file and a user's manual should be consulted before actually using the database through telnet to cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr, username topbase, password Seaton+. For further information contact the CDS staff at question@simbad.u-strasbg.fr or Keith Berrington, Department of Applied Mathematics, Queen's University of Belfast, Belfast, BT7 1NN (amg0016@uk.ac.queens-belfast.app-maths.vax1). [References: Cunto et al. (1993a,b).]
Additional information, Peter Smith, 17. Jan. 1995:
We have made Bob Kurucz's data - the 500,000 lines with
known energy levels and (mostly) semiempirical f-values -
available online. The URL for our database page is:
http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/~esmond/amdata.html .
Raymond Kelly's data (90,000 lines) should be available by the end
of the month I hope.
Users can specify an element and range of ionization stages and search
or lines in a given wavelength range. Wavelength, energy levels,
configurations, log(gf), and some reference information are given.
Searching the Kurucz data can take 3 to 4 minutes (for lines from a
single ion between 100 and 1000 nm). We have asked for NASA Astrophysics
Data Program support to make the process more sophisticated and
faster.
We welcome suggestions for improvements (and information about links to
similar databases of atomic and molecular parameters).
Peter Smith, Atomic & Molecular Physics Division,
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 617-495-4984 (fax -7455),
plsmith@cfa.harvard.edu