  In this work, visible and extreme ultraviolet spectra of W7+ are measured
using the high-temperature superconducting electron-beam ion trap (EBIT) at the
Shanghai EBIT Laboratory under extremely low-energy conditions (lower than the
nominal electron-beam energy of 130 eV). The relevant atomic structure is
calculated using the flexible atomic code package based on the relativistic
configuration interaction method. The GRASP2K code, in the framework of the
multiconfiguration Dirac-Hartree-Fock method, is employed as well for
calculating the wavelength of the M1 transition in the ground configuration of
W7+. A line from the W7+ ions is observed at a little higher electron-beam
energy than the ionization potential for W4+, making this line appear to be
from W5+. A hypothesis for the charge-state evolution of W7+ is proposed based
on our experimental and theoretical results; that is, the occurrence of W7+
ions results from indirect ionization caused by stepwise excitation between
some metastable states of lower-charge-state W ions, at the nominal
electron-beam energy of 59 eV.
