Spectroscopic study of the afterglow excited by intense electrical discharges in high-pressure helium hydrogen mixtures.

In this work, we report the study of afterglow plasmas with initial electron density over 1015 cm-3 excited by repetitive 3 kA, 7 ns duration discharges in He–H2 mixtures with helium pressure in the range 310–760 Torr and partial pressure of hydrogen from 20 to 400 mTorr. The afterglow radiation was emitted in He2 transitions as well as in atomic hydrogen spectral lines, with Lα being particularly intense. The ground state H concentration was estimated from the profile of the self-absorbed Lα line, indicating that dissociation of hydrogen occurs mainly in the afterglow by electron–ion recombination. He (2 3S) destruction frequencies have been determined from measurements of the optical absorption of the 2 3S→3 3P helium transition and were analyzed in terms of rate coefficients for various quenching processes. Among these, the Penning reaction with atomic hydrogen was found to be important. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]