  Relativistic and channel coupling effects in photoionization and unified
electronic recombination of Fe XVII are demonstrated with an extensive 60-level
close coupling calculation using the Breit-Pauli R-matrix method.
Photoionization and (e + ion) recombination calculations are carried out for
the total and the level-specific cross sections, including the ground and
several hundred excited bound levels of Fe XVII (up to fine structure levels
with n = 10). The unified (e + ion) recombination calculations for (e + Fe
XVIII --> Fe XVII) include both the non-resonant and resonant recombination
(`radiative' and `dielectronic recombination' -- RR and DR). The low-energy and
the high energy cross sections are compared from: (i) a 3-level calculation
with 2s^2p^5 (^2P^o_{1/2,3/2}) and 2s2p^6 (^2S_{1/2}), and (ii) the first
60-level calculation with \Delta n > 0 coupled channels with spectroscopic
2s^2p^5, 2s2p^6, 2s^22p^4 3s, 3p, 3d, configurations, and a number of
correlation configurations. Strong channel coupling effects are demonstrated
throughout the energy ranges considered, in particular via giant
photoexcitation-of-core (PEC) resonances due to L-M shell dipole transition
arrays 2p^5 --> 2p^4 3s, 3d in Fe XIII that enhance effective cross sections by
orders of magnitude. Comparison is made with previous theoretical and
experimental works on photoionization and recombination that considered the
relatively small low-energy region (i), and the weaker \Delta n = 0 couplings.
While the 3-level results are inadequate, the present 60-level results should
provide reasonably complete and accurate datasets for both photoionization and
(e + ion) recombination of Fe~XVII in laboratory and astrophysical plasmas.
