Analysis of the diffuse bands near 6100 Å in the fluorescence spectrum of Cs2

The diffuse bands near 6100 Å in the laser-induced fluorescence spectrum of Cs₂ are analyzed through quantum-mechanical spectral simulations. These bands are interpreted as bound-free emission to the vibrational continuum of the ground state from an excited state of ion-pair character. The lower region of this state, which we have labeled E′, is described approximately by the spectroscopic constants, T_e = 19400 cm⁻¹, R_e = 9 Å, and ω_e = 13 cm⁻¹. Experiments with a single-mode Ar⁺ laser as excitation source clearly reveal fine structure in the E′ → X spectrum, which was not evident for multimode laser excitation. This fine structure confirms our analysis and supports our suggestion that extensive averaging over initial (υ′, J′) levels is responsible for the absence of fine structure in the spectra excited by a multimode laser. Various averaging mechanisms are investigated in the spectral calculations. The paper includes a brief review of other work on “structured continua” in diatomic spectra, and a semiclassical treatment of such structure, with emphasis on the distinction between “reflection” structure and “interference” structure.