IMPROVED FITS FOR THE VIBRATIONAL AND ROTATIONAL-CONSTANTS OF MANY STATES OF NITROGEN AND OXYGEN

All pertinent measurements of the vibrational intervals DELTA-G (upsilon + 1/2) and rotational constants B-upsilon for 11 states of N2, four states of N2+, the ground state of O2, and four states of O2+ that could be found in published papers have been assembled and plotted against upsilon. (These are the states important in modeling the fluorescence produced when air is bombarded by fast electrons.) These values of DELTA-G and B-upsilon are compared with values calculated from the standard polynomials in powers of upsilon + 1/2, using the coefficients tabulated by Huber and Herzberg (1979), as well as coefficients derived by later analysts, when available. In about 25 percent of the states considered, the coefficients of Huber and Herzberg are found to still yield good fits to the latest available spectroscopic data. In another 25 percent, good fits are obtained from more recently published coefficients. For the remaining 50 percent of the states, new improved coefficients have been derived by least-squares fitting. The results are tabulated and plotted.