Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-chemistry-course-of-the-year-3-of-the-natural-sciences-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2021/paper-2a/section-a/13/solution

Natural broadening is about times narrower than the thermal Doppler width and is negligible for this comparison. The supplied Doppler broadening formula is a half width at half maximum. Using the integer molecular mass ,
For an excited-state population lifetime , the radiating amplitude decays as . Its Lorentzian line shape has natural linewidth
Equivalently, compare full widths and . Using the same linewidth convention in both expressions matters more than the small isotope-mass correction. This estimate assumes that the lower state's lifetime is long and leaves any pressure broadening as a separate contribution.

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