Heavy ion beam excitation of rare gases.

The emission of light from rare gas targets at pressures of more than 100 Pa excited by a pulsed heavy ion beam has been studied. The absolute intensity of several spectral lines has been measured as a function of time at different target gas pressures. Population densities, excitation cross sections, and rate constants for collisional quenching were determined from the line intensities and the lifetimes of the excited states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]