10min:

LEONID A. KALEDIN, Department of Chemistry, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322, U.S.A.; JONATHAN C. BLOCH, Lincoln Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Lexington, MA 02173, U.S.A.; MICHAEL C. MCCARTHY, Center for Astrophysics, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.; ROBERT W. FIELD, Department of Chemistry, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, U.S.A.

A laser excitation spectrum of the (0,0) and (1,1) bands of the CaF A² -X²⁺ system has been recorded. The present set of molecular constants for both A² and B²⁺ states represent a vast improvement in precision over previously reported values\footnoteJ.~Nakagawa, P.~J.~Domaille, T.~C.~Steimle, and D.~O.~Harris, J.~Mol.~Spectrosc. 70, 374-385 (1978); M.~Dulick, P.~F.~Bernath, and R.~W.~Field, Canad.~J.~Phys. 58,703-712 (1980); J.~Verges, C.~Effantin, A.~Bernard, A.~Topouzkhanian, A.~R.~Allouche, J.~d'Incan, and R.~F.~Barrow, J. Phys. B 26, 279-284 (1993) because of larger number of lines position measurements and the use of a more reasonable effective Hamiltonian model which accounts explicitly for the A - B interaction via off-diagonal matrix elements. Accurate spectroscopic parameters for the X, A , and B states will be presented.