Heterodyne spectroscopy of carbon monoxide lines perturbed by hydrogen and helium

Infrared heterodyne spectroscopy has been used for the first time to measure the widths and shifts of CO rovibrational spectra perturbed by H2 and He. A spectral resolution of 20 MHz was achieved. The CO-He line-broadening measurements were accurate enough to distinguish between two proposed intermolecular potential models of this system. Also, a measured increase in the broadening coefficient as a function of rotational quantum number j was observed for CO-He at temperatures of 80 K. This is not easy to explain in the context of so-called 'sudden approximations' which have been used to interpret pressure broadening data for this system.