Theory of pressure-induced vibrational and rotational absorption of diatomic molecules at high temperatures

A derivation is given for the integrated absorption coefficient of pressure-induced pure rotational and vibrational transitions in binary collisions of homonuclear diatomic molecules of the same chemical species. The previously neglected effects of excited vibrational states, mechanical anharmonicity, and vibration-rotation interaction are taken into account to obtain more accurate absorption coefficients at high temperatures. In the region of the fundamental wave number the excited vibrational states make more of a contribution to the absorption than their relative population would lead one to expect.