A review of the stark widths and shifts of spectral lines from non-hydrogenic atoms and ions in weakly-coupled plasmas and experimental results for XeI and XeII lines

In this paper, we present a review of experimental work on the Stark broadening and shift of non-hydrogenic spectral lines of neutral and ionized atoms in weakly-coupled plasmas. The most important factors determining the quality of the line profile and of the shift measurements are discussed. Comparisons of experimental results show large disagreements between various sets of data. In an attempt to find the cause for this discrepancy, an experiment was conducted to study the broadening and shift of XeI and XeII lines in the plasma of a pulsed xenon flashtube. Shifts and widths of the observed lines were found to be in good agreement with extrapolated low-density data obtained by other authors.