Possibility of nonexistence of hot and superhot hydrogen atoms in electrical discharges

Recently, the existence of extremely energetic hydrogen atoms in electrical discharges has been proposed in the literature with large controversy, from the analysis of the anomalous broadening of hydrogen Balmer lines. In this paper, the velocity distribution of H atoms and the profiles of the emitting atom lines created by the exothermic reaction H2++H{2}→H{3}{+}+H+ΔE are calculated, as a function of the internal energy defect ΔE . The shapes found for the non-Maxwell-Boltzmann distributions resulting in non-Gaussian line profiles raise serious arguments against the existence of hot and superhot H atoms as it has been proposed, at least with those temperatures.