Resonance luminescence of a nonuniformly heated dense vapor

The thermal luminescence spectra of a dense, nonuniformly heated resonance medium (sodium vapor) are investigated experimentally under conditions when the resonance corrections to the relative permittivity are not small compared to unity and the photon mean free path is comparable to the wavelength of the radiation. The shape of the recorded spectra agrees well with a previously developed general theory of resonance radiation transfer which predicts a strong asymmetry of the spectra. The prospects for performing more-sensitive measurements in order to make a quantitative check of the theoretically predicted anomalous intensity (an order of magnitude higher than in the standard theory of resonance radiation transfer) of the radiation from a dense nonuniform medium are discussed. Pis’ma Zh. éksp. Teor. Fiz. 65, No. 1, 15–19 (10 January 1997)