Stark broadening of neutral xenon

Abstract

Stark broadening of prominent visible Xe I lines are measured in three independent experiments. The three studies all use quiescent shock-tube plasmas as emission sources, but each employs distinctly different instrumentation, shock-heating regimes, and analytical methods. Owing to conditions in the light sources, temperatures between 9200 and 12 500 K, and electron densities in the range (2.2 - 10.0) \ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{} ${10}^{16}$ ${\mathrm{cm}}^{\ensuremath{-}3}$, competing broadening mechanisms and radiative trapping do not seriously complicate the Stark-width determinations. The three sets of broadening results are in mutually close agreement. Generally, they also compare satisfactorily with previous measurements. For some lines, the observed broadening disagrees with theoretical predictions.