Abstract
The first observations of radio recombination lines gave surprising results. The newly detected line profiles (Sorochenko and Borodzich, 1965; Höglund and Mezger, 1965; Lilley, Menzel, Penfield and Zuckerman, 1966) showed neither the Stark broadening individually nor the variation in Stark broadening with increasing quantum number n as predicted by theory. All the RRLs observed in the Omega nebula (M17) with principal quantum numbers up to n=166, within the accuracy of the measurements, had constant ratios of line width to frequency. This indicated pure Doppler broadening.
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© 2002 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
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Gordon, M.A., Sorochenko, R.L. (2002). RRLs and Atomic Physics. In: Radio Recombination Lines. Astrophysics and Space Science Library, vol 282. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-0261-5_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-0261-5_2
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-010-3956-7
Online ISBN: 978-94-010-0261-5
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