THE FAR-INFRARED CONTINUUM IN THE SPECTRUM OF WATER VAPOR

摘要

The origin of the continuum underlying the infrared spectrum of water vapor has been controversial. Measurements in the far infrared region for H_2O-N_2 mixtures are compared with the theory of Ma and Tipping which attributes the continuum to the cumulative effect of extremely far wings of individual spectral lines. Theory and experiment agree for the behavior of the shape of the continuum with increasing perturber density.