Near-Infrared Electronic Transitions of Pb(2)

Emission spectra of two new electronic transitions of Pb(2) have been measured with a Fourier transform spectrometer in the 5200-8500 cm(-1) range. The emissions were observed from the afterglow of a microwave discharge in a mixture of Pb(x) vapor with hydrogen and argon carrier gas. By comparison with the results of ab initio calculations, the spectra are assigned to transitions from the lowest 1(g) and 1(u) states to the X(1)0(+)(g) ground state. The X(2)1(g) --> X(1)0(+)(g) transition between the fine-structure components of the X(3)Sigma(-)(g) ground state must be magnetic dipole in nature and thus is the first purely magnetic dipole fine-structure transition observed in the optical region. The 1(u) state is mostly a component of the low-lying inverted A(3)Pi(u) state and so is denoted A(2)1(u). Vibrational analyses have yielded the following electronic energies and vibrational constants for (208)Pb(2) (in cm(-1)): X(1)0(+)(g): omega(e) = 110.20(2), omega(e)x(e) = 0.341(2); X(2)1(g): T(e) = 5304.9(1), omega(e) = 120.57(7), omega(e)x(e) = 0.254(14); A(2)1(u): T(e) = 7817.5(2), omega(e) = 126.45(6), omega(e)x(e) = 0.399(11), where the numbers in parentheses are the standard deviations of the parameters. Copyright 2000 Academic Press.