Time-Dependent Study of Vacuum-Ultraviolet Emission in Argon

A 250-keV pulsed electron accelerator was constructed for the excitation of noble gases, so that resonance radiation and continuous emission could be studied under conditions of good geometry with vacuum-ultraviolet spectroscopic techniques. For argon gas, time-dependent studies were carried out at the wave lengths of the ¹P₁ resonance line, the ³P₁ resonance line, the 1100-{} continuum, and the 1250-{} continuum over a wide range of gas pressures. The ¹P₁ resonance line decays exponentially with a lifetime which seems to be governed by the escape of resonance radiation to the walls of the apparatus and by three-body destruction of resonance states. The 1100-{} continuum, on the other hand, decays exponentially with a lifetime more characteristic of two-body Franck-Condon collisions. The main continuum near 1250 {} reaches a maximum well after the pulse of exciting electrons is terminated and then decays with a lifetime which is very long at low pressure but decreases to a constant value of 2.8 {μ}sec at high pressures(about 1000 torr). From the data we suggest that the ¹P₁ states, which are richly populated with charged particles, are converted to argon metastable molecules and these in turn are converted by collisions to a molecule which radiates the 1250-{} continuum with the 2.8-{μ}sec lifetime. Better fitting to the time-dependent emission at 1250 {} is obtained by also including the known channel starting with ³P₂ metastable atoms which are converted to a radiating molecule by three-body collisions.