Collisions of the Second Kind with Excited Mercury Atoms in the 2P State

Abstract

A NUMBER of experiments have recently been performed by various experimenters in which a mixture of gases containing mercury vapour as one constituent has been illuminated by light from a water-cooled quartz mercury arc. In interpreting the results of these experiments it has generally been assumed that the following process takes place. Mercury atoms first absorb radiation λ2536, an electron thereby being raised to the 2p₂ state. Having reached this excited state the mercury atom may collide with one of the other atoms or molecules present and transfer its potential energy over to the other atom or molecule. The energy thus transferred may do one of several things. It may cause a molecule to dissociate; it may excite the colliding molecule or atom; it may all be changed into thermal kinetic energy of the two colliding bodies; or it may do combinations of the above.