Kinetic studies of N2 and N2–SF6 following proton excitation

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Abstract
Low intensity proton pulses have been used to excite pure N2 and N2–SF6 mixtures. By accumulating time and wavelength resolved information on the fluorescence that arises from a very large number of pulses, we have obtained data that are free from effects due to superelastic collisions with electrons or other nonlinear effects such as the interactions between ions or excited neutral species. For N2 the natural lifetimes of N2(C 3Πu) and N2+(B 2Σu+) were determined by monitoring N2(C 3Πu→B 3Πg) and N2+ (B 2Σu+→X 2Σg+) states, respectively. The quenching rates of N2(C 3Πu) and N2+(B 2Σu+) in different vibrational states by pure N2 and by SF6 were obtained. The addition of small concentrations of SF6 altered the late time behavior of the N2(C 3Πu→B 3Πg) transitions, and the addition of much higher concentrations of SF6 caused a large increase in the intensity of the 3371 Å (C→B) transition.