Comment on "Argon I Lines Produced in a Hollow Cathode Source, 332 nm to 5865 nm".
Recent observations at the National Institute of Standards and Technology indicate that the Ar I wavenumbers reported by Whaling et al. [J. Res. Natl. Inst. Stand. Technol. 107, 149 (2002)] are systematically too large. To investigate the source of this problem, selected lines of Ar I and Ar II were remeasured in the same spectra used by Whaling et al. The measurements show that the Ar I wavenumbers of Whaling et al. are systematically shifted with respect to the Ar II wavenumbers previously reported by Whaling et al. [J. Quant. Spectrosc. Radiat. Transfer 53, 1 (1995)] based on the same spectra. The Ar I wavenumbers can be corrected by a constant multiplicative correction of 0.999 999 933.
National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD 20899.
Craig J
CJ
Sansonetti
Fourier transform spectroscopy; argon; atomic spectroscopy; wavelengths