[en] The difficulty associated with an accurate determination of transition rates for forbidden lines in lowly ionized heavy elements is illustrated in the case of Nd II. We have investigated the radiative decay of the low-lying metastable levels in Nd+ including the two levels K11/2 and I13/2. In these two particular cases, using different theoretical approaches, we find that the decay is dominated by the M1 channels but that the E2 contributions are of the same order of magnitude. These levels have also been studied experimentally by lifetime measurements with the heavy ion storage ring CRYRING of Stockholm University. The difficulties encountered when performing such experiments are underlined and discussed.
