Narrowing and broadening parameters of H2O lines perturbed by He, Ne, Ar, Kr and nitrogen in the spectral range 1850-2240 cm-1

Collision effects on water vapor at low concentration in mixture with noble gases and nitrogen have been studied by Fourier transform spectroscopy in a pressure range where line narrowing by dynamic confinement (Dicke effect) and collision broadening are observable, i.e. when the Voigt function cannot reproduce the observed profiles. Precise values of the broadening parameter have been obtained for R branch lines of the nu (2) band of H2O and narrowing parameter values were derived using the soft and hard collision models. Furthermore, it is shown that, when neglecting the confinement effect, systematic errors on the broadening parameters may be introduced and reach several percents for the narrowest lines corresponding to the highest J values. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.