The Determination of Collision Damping Constants

The most recent methods of deriving the collision damping widths of spectral lines have been applied to the results of our experiments on the collision broadening of the light alkalies by noble gases. The success of the treatment at temperatures reached in the laboratory furnace and the good agreement with a limited number of other experiments at stellar temperatures give renewed confidence in the accuracy of derived stellar damping constants and strongly indicate a temperature dependence of w T0 for broadening by atomic hydrogen. Subject headings: atomic processes - line profiles - stars: atmospheres