Bulk rotational relaxation time and cross-section in gas mixtures Original Research Article

In an earlier paper [M. Terzić, J. Jovanović-Kurepa, D.D. Markušev, J. Phys. B: At. Mol. Opt. Phys. 32 (1999) 1193] we have presented a method for evaluation of the bulk rotational relaxation times and cross-sections in gas mixtures from the measured saturation intensity, IS, vs. buffer gas pressure, pbuff, at constant incident laser energy. According to this method, the bulk rotational parameters were determined from the slope, IS/pbuff (“the slope method”). In this work, we report an alternative method to determine the same parameters, which does not require the knowledge of the functional dependence of IS vs. pbuff. The method, which we propose, allows the evaluation of bulk rotational relaxation parameters from measured IS at a selected pbuff. Hence, we termed this method “the point method”.