New Source of the Red Shift of Highly-Excited Hydrogenic Spectral Lines in Astrophysical and Laboratory Plasmas

Abstract

High-n hydrogen spectral lines (SL), n=13–17, studied in astrophysical and laboratory observations at the electron density Ne ~ 1013 cm-3 by Bengtson and Chester exhibited red shifts by orders of magnitude greater than the theoretical shifts known up to now. Specifically, BC presented the shifts of these SL observed in the spectra from Sirius and in the spectra from a radiofrequency discharge plasma in the laboratory: both types of the observations yielded red shifts that exceeded the corresponding theoretical shifts by orders of magnitude. In the present paper we introduce an additional source of the shift of high-n hydrogenic SL. We show that for high-n hydrogen SL it makes the primary contribution to the total red shift. We demonstrate that for the conditions of the astrophysical and laboratory observations from paper by Bengtson and Chester, this additional red shift is by orders of magnitude greater than the theoretical shifts known up to now. Finally we show that the allowance for this additional red shift removes the existed huge discrepancy between the observed and theoretical shifts of those that of high-n hydrogen SL.