THE ADIABATIC LINEAR STARK EFFECT IN A PLASMA,
Abstract
The electrical microfield in a plasma changes rapidly in space and time. For this reason the linear Stark effect of hydrogen spectral lines emitted from a plasma cannot be treated by a pure static theory as this is usually done assuming that the shift of atomic energy levels corresponds to the instantaneous electric field. A more rigorous treatment has to consider the simultaneous action of the long range Coulomb fields of many particles. Only the low frequency part of this composed field leads to adiabatic energy shifts. On obtaining an expression for the mean square low frequency field some Balmer line profiles are computed as far as the adiabatic Stark effect is concerned. On account of some new results on the probability distribution of the microfield a Gaussian distribution has to be used for the adiabatic shift of a single energy term. The resulting profiles are compared with those of the static 'Holtsmark-Theory' and some experimental material. It turns out that the formula obtained here for adiabatic line broadening coincides nearly with the 'Lindholm Formula' for the Coulomb case but derived originally to account for collision broadening. (Author)
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Dec 01, 1964
- Accession Number
- AD0614283
Entities
People
- K. H. Wilke
- K. Hunger
- R. W. Larenz