Revisiting the Stark width and shift of He II Pα

Abstract

We report experimental determination of plasma-induced Stark widths and shifts of the He II Pα line and a comparison of the results with calculations performed by several computational approaches. The measurements were carried out in a small compressing plasma channel device, reaching electron densities in excess of 1018 cm-3 and temperatures of a few eV. The experimental data are in a good agreement with some previously published studies. However, the measured relation between the Stark shift and width could not be reproduced by either of the codes, and this disagreement is not yet resolved. This suggests the existence of an additional effect that is not accounted for in the present models and leads to a larger than expected Stark shift of the He II Pα line.