Forbidden transitions among $3d^6$ levels of Fe III

Radiative rates for electric quadrapole (E2) and magnetic dipole (M1) transitions among lowest 32 levels belonging to the $3d^6$ configuration of Fe III are calculated using the CIV3 program of Hibbert [1]. In a recent calculation we [2] reported a large scale CI calculation of E1 transitions among all J-dependent levels of the 136 LS states belonging to the $3d^6$, $3d^54s$ and $3d^54p$ configuration of Fe III. The J-dependent wavefunctions of that calculation [2] are used in the present investigation to calculate transition probabilities of all possible E2 and M1 transitions among the lowest 32 levels of the $3d^6$ configuration. These results are then compared with only a few available theoretical calculations. We find that there are some substantial disagreements among various calculations for many of the transitions. Many of the present A-values for E2 and M1 transitions are significantly higher than the corresponding values in other calculations and this has an important effect on the analysis of astrophsyical observations. \\ \noindent [1] A.Hibbert, Comput. Phys. Commun. {\bf 9} (1975) 141\\ \noindent [2] N.C.Deb and A.Hibbert, J.Phys.B {\bf 40} (2007) F251\\