The upper lasing level (first excited ``3Σu+'' state) of molecular xenon is examined in the context of a particle‐hole model, with a view toward gaining insight into the electronic configuration and the electric dipole transition to the ground state. It is found that the spontaneous decay time of this lasing transition, reasonably independent of the form of the molecular binding, is in this model 23 ± 8 nsec.

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D. Kent
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E. Merzbacher, Quantum Mechanics (Wiley, New York, 1961).
3.
Analytic computation of integrals with hydrogenic wavefunctions is discussed in, for example, E. U. Condon and G. H. Shortley, The Theory of Atomic Spectra (Cambridge U.P., London, 1953), Chap. 5.
4.
Two‐center molecular integrals can be reduced to a combination of incomplete gamma functions using prolate spherical coordinates given in H. Margenau and G. Murphy, The Mathematics of Physics and Chemistry (Van Nostrand, Princeton, N.J., 1943).
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H. A. Koehler, L. J. Ferderber, D. L. Redhead, and P. J. Ebert, “Vacuum Ultraviolet Emission from High‐Pressure Xenon and Argon Excited by High‐Current Relativistic Electron Beams,” Phys. Rev. A (to be published); and personal communication, October 1973.
6.
After submission of this paper, the author’s attention was drawn to a recent experimental paper reporting a value of τAB≈50±20 nanoseconds:
A. W.
Johnson
and
J. B.
Gerardo
,
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(
1973
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R. S.
Mulliken
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B. Schneider (personal communication).
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