Orientation of doubly excited states in N2

Authors

John E. Furst, University of Newcastle
Timothy J. Gay, University of Nebraska - LincolnFollow
Joshua Machacek, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
David Kilkoyne, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Kenneth W. McLaughlin, Loras College

Date of this Version

2012

Citation

PHYSICAL REVIEW A 86, 041401(R) (2012); DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevA.86.041401

Comments

Copyright 2012 American Physical Society. Used by permission.

Abstract

We have measured the total fluorescent intensity and circular polarization of light emitted in 3p ⁴P^o → 3s⁴P transitions of excited neutral nitrogen atoms created by the photofragmentation of the N₂ molecule with circularly polarized light having energies between 21 and 26 eV. The intensity measurements show the effect of predissociation of the N₂ Rydberg series R(C) ¹Σ⁺_u states by non-Rydberg doubly excited resonances (NRDERs), while nonzero values of circular polarization allow us to unambiguously identify the presence of a directly excited NRDER with ¹Π_u symmetry in this energy range.