On the role of Dicke narrowing in the formation of atomic line shapes in the opticaldomain

Abstract

The purpose of this work is to verify the possibility of the observation of the Dickenarrowing of atomic spectral lines in the optical domain. As an example we have chosenexperimental results obtained by means of a laser-induced fluorescence method for the114Cd 326.1 nm line perturbed by xenon. Experimental results were carefully reanalysed using aline shape model which takes into account the speed dependence of collisional broadeningand shifting, the velocity-changing collisions and the collision-time asymmetry. Wehave found no convincing evidence for the occurrence of Dicke narrowing of the326.1 cadmium line perturbed by xenon. The Dicke narrowing (if it occurs atall) appears to be smaller than that resulting from the estimation based on theaccessible data describing the diffusion of Cd in Xe. As a source of this behaviour thecorrelation between velocity-changing and dephasing collisions was indicated.