Far-infrared spectroscopy of heavy protonated noble gas species using synchrotron radiation

Abstract

In this work, we report new absorption spectra of protonated noble gas species ArH⁺, KrH⁺ and XeH⁺. Both pure rotation transitions and rotation-vibration transitions were recorded at high resolution using the Fourier transform interferometer of the AILES beamline of the synchrotron facility SOLEIL. The species were produced in a hollow cathode discharge cell for which the cathode is cooled down to liquid nitrogen temperature. While our spectra of ArH do not provide new experimental information compared to the wealth of data available in the literature, both spectra of KrH⁺ and XeH⁺ contain numerous new transitions belonging to several isotopologues observed in natural abundance. KrH⁺ and XeH⁺ spectra have been analysed using a Dunham Hamiltonian to provide mass independent sets of parameters and allowing to determine bond lengths with improved accuracy.

Olivier Pirali

Director of Research

My research interests includes high resolution molecular spectroscopy, laboratory astrophysics, and THz generation.