New Terms in the Oxygen Arc Spectrum

Abstract

Methods have been developed for the powerful excitation of the oxygen arc spectrum in the absence of bands, in large diameter heavy current discharge tubes and in narrow capillary quartz discharge tubes. In both tubes the green auroral line appears strongly. The oxygen arc spectrum has been photographed with these discharge tubes with large dispersion and many new lines have been observed. Fifty new lines have been classified in the oxygen arc spectrum involving six new triplet terms and one new singlet term based on the $2s^{2}2p^3\left({}_{}{}^2{}_{}{}^{}D\right)$ and $2s^{2}2p^3\left({}_{}{}^2{}_{}{}^{}P\right)$ configurations of the ion.