H-β Line in a Corona Helium Plasma: A Multi-Code Line Shape Comparison

Abstract

Many spectroscopic diagnostics are routinely used as techniques to infer the plasma parameters from line emission spectra, but their accuracy depends on the numerical model or code used for the fitting process. However, the validation of a line shape code requires some steps: the comparison of the line shape code with other similar codes for some academic (simple) cases and then for more complex ones, the comparison of the fitting parameters obtained from the best fit of the experimental spectra with those obtained with other diagnostic techniques, and/or the comparison of the fitting parameters obtained by different codes to fit the same experimental data. Here we compare the profiles of the hydrogen Balmer β line in helium plasma computed by five codes for a selected set of plasma parameters and we report on the plasma parameters inferred by each of them from the fitting to a number of experimental spectra measured in a helium corona discharge where the pressure was in the range of 1–5 bars.

Keywords

• Stark broadening
• van der Waals broadening
• line shapes
• helium plasma
• corona discharge
• plasma diagnostics
• code comparison
• neutral broadening
• pressure broadening