An interferometric and spectroscopic study on a high-current argon arc

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Abstract
The plasmas under investigation have been generated in a 4 mm bore wall-stabilised arc operating at atmospheric pressure with currents in the range 20 to 100 A in argon as well as in a mixture of argon and hydrogen. The electron density was determined with a statistical error of less than 1% by means of 2 lambda interferometry at lambda 632.8 nm and lambda 1152.3 nm. Possible systematic uncertainty caused by excited atoms was estimated to be less than 3% for the electron density range 1.89*1016 cm-3e17 cm-3. Under the assumption of local thermodynamical equilibrium, experimental transition probabilities were obtained for the Ar I 430.0 nm line (Anm=3.2*105 s-1+or-7%) and the Ar II 480.6 nm line (Anm=7*107 s-1+or-14%). The values are not line-wing corrected. For the considered electron density range, the experimental half and quarter widths (in the reduced wavelength scale) of the Hbeta line were found to be constant within the limits of the experimental accuracy. In addition, it is shown that the experimental data of the Ar I 1430.0 nm line transition probabilities given in the literature can be brought to a common value by considering the present reduced widths of the Hbeta line profile.

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