Theoretical investigation of the spectral properties of gas lasers

A continuation is reported of the authors' earlier investigations in which the spectral behavior of gas lasers with strong homogeneous line broadening was analyzed numerically for two-mode lasing observed in an argon ion laser and for random types of multimode lasing. A separate analysis is made of the influence of the inhomogeneous line width and of the effect of different lifetimes of the upper and lower atomic levels on the profile and temporal evolution of the spectrum. It is shown that, in addition to the ratio of the homogeneous line width to the intermode spacing, these quantities also play an important part.