Memory curves in the rare gases

The decay of the metastable states has been investigated in a DC afterglow discharge in helium, argon, krypton and xenon at room temperature. This investigation was done by measurement of the electrical breakdown time delay (t d ) as a function of passive time ( tau ) ('memory curves'). It is shown that the concentration of these states during this time decays according to an approximately exponential law. It is shown that the nonradiative lifetime of metastable states in helium is much longer than that in argon, krypton and xenon.