A contribution to the theory of the Faraday effect of excitons in rare-gas crystals

An expression for the Faraday rotation of excitons in rare-gas crystals was found for the case of a weak magnetic field. The wave functions of an exciton in a magnetic field were found in first order of perturbation theory in an approximation including spin-orbit interaction and overlapping of atomic wave functions. The general theory was used for the estimation of Faraday rotation in crystalline argon.It is a pleasure for the author to acknowledge her debt to Dr. M. Trlifaj for suggesting the problem and for helpful discussions.