Summary: | In the paper, several theoretical approaches to the determination of the reduced absorption and emission coefficients under local thermodynamic equilibrium conditions were exposed and discussed. The full quantum-mechanical procedure based on the Fourier grid Hamiltonian method was numerically robust but time consuming. In that method, all transitions between the bound, free, and quasi-bound states were treated as bound⁻bound transitions. The semi-classical method assumed continuous energies of ro-vibrational states, so it did not give the ro-vibrational structure of the molecular bands. That approach neglected the effects of turning points but agreed with the averaged-out quantum-mechanical spectra and it was computer time efficient. In the semi-quantum approximation, summing over the rotational quantum number J was done analytically using the classical Franck⁻Condon principle and the stationary⁻phase approximation and its consumption of computer time was lower by a few orders of magnitude than the case of the full quantum-mechanical approach. The approximation described well the vibrational but not the rotational structure of the molecular bands. All the above methods were compared and discussed in the case of a visible and near infrared spectrum of LiHe, Li<sub>2</sub>, and Cs<sub>2</sub> molecules in the high temperature range.
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