Mécanisme d'excitation des bandes de Swan des comètes

in Annales d'astrophysique (1960), 23

The high resolution spectrograms of Comet Mrkos (1957d) reveal the essential features of the rotational structure of the Swan-bands. Intensity anomalies observed within the (1 - 0) and (2 - 1) transitions ... [more ▼]

The high resolution spectrograms of Comet Mrkos (1957d) reveal the essential features of the rotational structure of the Swan-bands. Intensity anomalies observed within the (1 - 0) and (2 - 1) transitions are due to the presence of absorption lines in the exciting solar radiation. It is thus proved that the Swan bands are excited by fluorescence, although their lower level 3πu is not the ground electronic state of C2. [less ▲]