A Spectroscopic Study of a Decaying Hydrogen Plasma

Abstract

A study has been made of the decay of a hydrogen plasma of ion density ~3 ´ 1015 cm?3 and temperature ~104°K. Details are presented of the experimental methods used to determine density and temperature distributions in the decaying plasma. The plasma decays by three-body recombination mainly and the experimental values of the recombination coefficient agree with those expected for a plasma opaque to Lyman radiation.