Decay of metastable xenon atoms Xe*(3P2) in a xenon afterglow

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Using the light absorption technique, the decay constant for the density of metastable xenon atoms Xe*(3P2) has been measured in a pure xenon afterglow at pressures between 4*10-2 and 8 Torr. At a gas temperature at 300K the diffusion coefficients D0 for the Xe*(3P2) metastable atoms in the parent gas has been found to be 19+or-2 cm2 Torr s-1, the relaxation cross section sigma of the Xe*(3P2) atoms in a two-body collision with a xenon atom has been determined to be (7.4+or-1)*10-20 cm2 and the coefficient of a three-body collision of the Xe*(3P2) atoms with two xenon atoms A2 was found to be (7.6+or-1)*10-32 cm6 atom-2 s-1. At pressures above 4 Torr the authors have observed a repopulation of the metastable level resulting from the electron-Xe2* molecular ion recombination.