The ionization and heating of the media surrounding accretion-powered compact sources,such as cataclysmic variables,X-ray binaries,and active galactic nuclei,are dominated by photoionization.Theoretical models of photo ionized gases show that the ionization structure is determined by photoionization balanced by radiative recombination(RR)and dielectronic recombination(DR).At low electron temperature existing in photo ionized gases with cosmic abundances,DR proceeds primarily via nlj→nl′j′excitations of core electrons(Δn=0).