Investigation of the dynamics of the populations of electronic states of atoms and ions in a self-sustained discharge in an HCl–Xe–He mixture

The Rozhdestvenskii hook method was used to study the dynamics of the concentration of excited helium and xenon atoms and of excited xenon ions, and the absorption method was used to study the dynamics of the concentration of negative Cl^– ions. The experimentally determined concentrations were compared with the calculated ones. It was found that allowance for the processes of cascade excitation of the vibrational levels of the HCl molecules by electron impact and attachment to highly excited vibrational states of HCl leads to an increase in the discharge gap voltage by a factor of 1.5.