Knowledge Bank

Most of a large gap in the laboratory ro-vibrational spectrum of $H3+$ around $3800cm-1$ has been filled using a recently computer controlled color center laser spectrometer which scans between 3000 and $4200cm-1$. A liquid nitrogen cooled $He/H2$ discharge is used to produce rotationally cool, yet vibrationally hot $H3+$. Variational $calculationsa$ predict that roughly 300 new lines from the fundamental, the first overtone, combination, and hot bands may be observable with the sensitivity of our spectrometer. The results of this survey will be reported and compared to the theoretical calculations.