Visible excimer bands of the K-noble-gas and Na-noble-gas molecules: Comparison of experiment with theory

The visible emission bands from $\mathrm{K}\mathrm{}\left(5S\right)\mathrm{}\mathrm{Xe}$, $\mathrm{K}\mathrm{}\left(5S\right)\mathrm{}\mathrm{Kr}$, $\mathrm{Na}\mathrm{}\left(4S\right)\mathrm{}\mathrm{Xe}$, and $\mathrm{Na}\mathrm{}\left(4S\right)\mathrm{}\mathrm{Kr}$ excimers have been observed experimentally, the potassium excimers being produced by a violet ${\mathrm{Kr}}^{+}$ laser excitation and the sodium excimers by a discharge. These observed profiles are compared with calculated profiles based on Gallagher's quasistatic theory and Pascale's molecular potentials and oscillator strengths. Qualitative conclusions are drawn concerning the shapes and depths of the molecular-potential curves and the accuracies of the computed oscillator strengths. The theoretical emission profile is approximated by an analytical form, and the emission linewidth is predicted to vary as $T^{\frac{1}{2}}$, where $T$ is the absolute temperature. This is verified experimentally for KXe in a limited temperature range.