  It is shown that the commonly held view of a sharp Fe K edge must be modified
if the decay pathways of the series of resonances converging to the K
thresholds are adequately taken into account. These resonances display damped
Lorentzian profiles of nearly constant widths that are smeared to impose
continuity across the threshold. By modeling the effects of K damping on
opacities, it is found that the broadening of the K edge grows with the
ionization level of the plasma and that the appearance at high ionization of a
localized absorption feature at 7.2 keV is identified as the K-beta unresolved
transition array.
