Abstract: A physical model of analysing the behaviour of impurities out of coronal equilibrium in tokamak plasmas has been proposed. Through solving the time-dependent rate equations including the effects of atomic processes and the particle transport losses, the ionization state distribution is obtained for a range of low $Z$ impurities such as helium, carbon, oxygen and argon. By using  the ionization state distribution of these impurities, the radiation rate coefficients and the mean charge state changing with plasma temperature are calculated. The results show that the mean charge state $\langle { Z} \rangle $ is sensitively dependent on the parameter $n_{\rm e} \tau $, and this is the reason why the radiation power of impurities under non-coronal equilibrium conditions is several orders of magnitude higher than that  under coronal equilibrium condition.  

Key words: plasma impurity, non-coronal equilibrium, radiation