Most populated rotational level ($J_{\ast }=\sqrt{T/(2{\theta }_{\mathrm{rot}})}-1/2$)

The rotational state populations of a spin-free polar linear rigid rotor are proportional to $(2J+1)e^{-{\theta }_{\mathrm{rot}}J(J+1)/T}$. Differentiating their logarithm with respect to continuous $J$ gives the displayed maximum when it is nonnegative. The actual maximum must be selected among nonnegative integers by comparing adjacent populations. This population maximum generally differs from a maximum in measured spectral line intensity.