Line mixing effects in the ν2 + ν3 band of methane

This study provides the first direct experimental measurements of the off-diagonal relaxation matrix element coefficients for line mixing in air-broadened methane spectra for any vibrational band and the first off diagonal relaxation matrix elements associated with line mixing for pure methane in the ν₂ + ν₃ band of ¹²CH₄. The speed-dependent Voigt profile with line mixing is used with a multispectrum nonlinear least squares curve fitting technique to retrieve the various line parameters from 11 self-broadened and 10 air-broadened spectra simultaneously. The room temperature spectra analyzed in this work are recorded at 0.011 cm⁻¹ resolution with the McMath-Pierce Fourier transform spectrometer located at the National Solar Observatory, Kitt Peak, Arizona. The off-diagonal relaxation matrix element coefficients of ν₂ + ν₃ transitions between 4410 and 4629 cm⁻¹ are reported for eighteen pairs with upper state J values between 2 and 11. The observed line mixing coefficients for self broadening vary from 0.0019 to 0.0390 cm⁻¹ atm⁻¹ at 296 K. The measured line mixing coefficients for air broadening vary from 0.0005 to 0.0205 cm⁻¹ atm⁻¹ at 296 K.