| Summary: | The electron impact excitation and ionization processes are crucial for modeling the spectra of different astrophysical objects, from atmospheres of late-type stars to remnants of supernovae and up to the light emission from neutron star mergers, to name just a few. Despite their significance, however, little is known quantitatively about these processes for low- and medium-impact energies of, say, <inline-formula><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><semantics><mrow><msub><mi>E</mi><mi>kin</mi></msub><mspace width="0.166667em"></mspace><mo>≲</mo><mspace width="0.166667em"></mspace><mn>5000</mn></mrow></semantics></math></inline-formula> eV of the free incident electron. To further explore the role of impact excitation, we here expanded <span style="font-variant: small-caps;">Jac</span>, the Jena Atomic Calculator, to the computation of distorted wave collision strengths for fine-structure-resolved, as well as configuration-averaged transitions. While we excluded the formation of dielectronic resonances, these tools can be readily applied for ions with a complex shell structure and by including the major relativistic contributions to these strengths. Detailed computations of the collision strengths are shown and explained for the impact excitation of lithium- and chlorine-like ions. When compared with other, well-correlated methods, good agreement was found, and hence, these tools will support studies of effective collision strengths for a wide range of electron impact energies, levels, and ionic charge states.
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