Bound-free emission in HgBr

Abstract

We report the first experimental observation of bound-continuum fluorescence in the mercuric bromide system. HgBr (B2Σ+) population is created in ultraviolet photodissociative excitation of the dihalide. The resulting bound-free fluorescence (B2Σ+→A2Π) is detected over a bandwidth of ≂120 nm centered at 685 nm. The associated and well known bound-bound fluorescence (B2Σ+→X 2Σ+) is also seen. A semiclassical computer code has been developed to predict the transition probability density for the observed bound-free features.