MEASUREMENT OF LIFETIMES AND COLLISIONAL RATE CONSTANTS FOR 3P LEVELS IN NEON-I, NEON-II AND NEON-IV

Lifetimes and collisional quenching rate constants have been measured for 3p levels in Ne I, Ne II, and Ne IV. The levels were populated by direct excitation from the neon ground state using a pulsed beam of 100 MeV S-32 ions from the Munich Tandem van de Graaff accelerator. Beam pulses were 2 ns long (FWHM) and had a repetition rate of 78 kHz. Lifetimes were measured by time resolved optical spectroscopy. Collisional rate constants were determined from time spectra for various target gas pressures.