Knowledge Bank

The pressure dependence of the polarization relaxation time, $T2$, has been determined for the J = 1 $\to$ 2 rotational transition in OCS by measuring the linewidth of the transition, the exponential rise time of on-resonant transient absorption, and the exponential decay time of off-resonant transient absorption-emission. The values of the numbers obtained are nearly equal for all three experiments. However, the linewidth parameter is 2--5% smaller than previously reported values. Also, the results for the transient experiments, expressed as a linewidth parameter, are slightly larger than the steady-state linewidth measurements. The possible reasons for these discrepancies will be discussed.