Enhanced technique for measuring collisional quenching rate coefficients in rare-gas mixtures

We set forth an improved technique for the investigation of collisional quenching in high-pressure rare-gas mixtures, which relies on the absorption probing measurements of the decay rates of the excited states of these gases in the afterglow of a fast electron beam discharge. We determined more precisely the rate coefficients of the plasmochemical reactions Xe* + Xe + Ar → Xe₂* and Xe*+Ar → products + Ar for the metastable (6s[3/2]₂⁰) and resonance (6s[3/2]₁⁰) levels of atomic Xe investigated in our earlier work. The rate coefficients for the reactions Xe(6s[3/2]₂⁰) + 2Ar → ArXe* + Ar((7.2±1.4)×10^-36 cm⁶ s^-1) and Xe(6s[3/2]₁⁰) + 2Ar → ArXe*((5.3±2.4)×10^-36 cm⁶ s^-1) were measured for the first time.