Coronal and local thermodynamic equilibriums in a hollow cathode discharge

A characteristic two-section profile of excited-state populations is observed in a hollow cathode discharge and is explained by coexistence of the coronal equilibrium (CE) and the local thermodynamic equilibrium (LTE). At helium pressure 0.1 Torr and cathode current 200-300 mA, vacuum ultraviolet radiations from He I 1snp 1P (n=2-16) and He II np2P (n=2-14) are resolved with a 2.2-M McPherson spectrometer. Relative populations of these states are deduced from the discrete line intensities and are plotted against energy levels. For both the He I and He II series, as energy level increases, populations of high-n (n>10) states are found to decrease much more quickly than low-n (n<7) populations. While low-n populations are described with the CE dominated by direct electron-impact excitations, high-n populations are fitted with the LTE to calculate the population temperatures of gas atoms and ions. Validities of the CE and LTE in different n-ranges are considered on the competition between radiative decays of the excited states and their collisions with gas atoms. (author)