Date of Award
1970
Document Type
Thesis
Publication Status
Version of Record
Submission Date
October 2026
Thesis/Dissertation Advisor [Chair]
Burnett, Clyde R.
Abstract
Time-resolved absolute intensity measurements have been made on the Balmer series lines of a residual hydrogen impurity in a hollowcathode helium afterglow plasma. From these measurements, the excited state populations were calculated and revealed the existence of population inversions in the excited states of hydrogen. In the hydrogen afterglow the maximum average state population shifted upwards from n = 3 at the beginning of the afterglow to progressively higher states until in the late afterglow the maximum population was at n = 6. The effects of the helium metastables, both atomic and molecular, were shown to offer no detectable contribution to the observed inversions. Comparison with a theoretical model for a recombining pulsed hydrogen plasma for which inversions had been predicted are favorable and recomb ~nation processes are assumed responsible for the inversions in the lower discrete levels in the hydrogen impurity.
Extent
173 p.
Recommended Citation
Marstad, Norman C., "Excited State Populations of a Residual Hydrogen Impurity in a Helium Afterglow Plasma" (1970). Electronic Theses and Dissertations 1970 - 1979. 16.
https://digitalcommons.fau.edu/etd_general_2/16
Identifier
FA00000796
Comments
Thesis (M.S.)--Florida Atlantic University, 1970.|Thesis (M.S.)--Florida Atlantic University, 1970.