A comparison of foreign gas broadening and shift of neon and argon emission lines

Abstract

Foreign gas broadening and shift coefficients for Ne and Ar emission lines produced in a high pressure (0·5-2·0 atm) He discharge have been measured. The shift coefficients vary significantly for different transitions. This variation results from the differing excited state potentials for the He-Ne ∗ and He-Ar ∗ collision pairs, which must be included in any reasonable quantum-mechanical calculation of line shifts. Even the small differences in broadening coefficients demonstrate the inadequacy of calculation of broadening from equations based on the Lindholm (1)-Foley (2) theory of collision broadening.