Broadening of the Fine-Structure Raman Lines in Gaseous Oxygen
Abstract Due to the coupling between the rotational angular momentum and the electronic spin, the depolarized Rayleigh light scattered from gaseous oxygen shows Stokes and anti-Stokes satellites shifted by about 60 GHz. The broadening of these fine-structure Raman lines is investigated theoretically for high and medium pressures where the linewidth is determined by two contributions, one proportional and the other inversely proportional to the pressure, p. The linewidth in the pressure broadening region is given by a relaxation frequency which is obtained from the Waldmann-Snider collision term. The p-1 contribution to the linewidth is determined by the ratio of the second moment of the fine-structure freqencies (with respect to the center of the shifted line) and another relaxation frequency. Both relaxation frequencies are sensitive to the nonspherical part of the inter-molecular potential.