Abstract
Population densities of He excited states of n>or=3 in a positive column He-Cd+ laser were measured accurately using end light from a discharge tube. It is shown that the sum of these populations is certainly smaller by about one order of magnitude than the population density of the 23S metastable state. It is further shown that the monotonic increase of the intensity of the Cd(II) 441.6 nm line with discharge current cannot be explained with the Penning collision process between He excited state atoms and Cd ground state atoms even if all the He excited states of n>or=3 and 23,1P states are taken into account.