Active Nitrogen

Abstract

It is shown that Mitra's hypothesis which attributes the Lewis-Rayleigh afterglow of nitrogen to the excitation of the molecules by a three-body collision, $\mathrm{N}_2^{}{}_{}{}^{+}\left(X^{\prime }\right)+e+{\mathrm{N}}_2={\mathrm{N}}_2(B-\mathrm{state})+{\mathrm{N}}_2(A-\mathrm{state}),$