Inversion of line intensities emitted by an axially symmetric absorbing plasma

Abstract

This is partly a tutorial and partly an original paper on the well-known, practically, very important inverse problem arising in atomic spectroscopy and connected with the retrieval of radial distribution profiles of emission and absorption coefficients from the lateral spectral intensities. After a brief introduction a rather general iterative algorithm for inversion related to an axially symmetric, optically thick plasma is considered. Some new versions of an analytical approximate solution are discussed. The more complicated nonlinear identification problem of inversion is critically examined.