Foreign-Continuum Absorption in the Wings of IR H2O Bands

The H2O foreign-continuum absorption in the IR region is considered within the asymptotic line wing theory, where absorption is represented as the sum of the absorption coefficients of individual lines of a special profile at far distances from the line centers. The line profile parameters pertaining to quantum and classical Н2О–N2 interaction potentials are found from fitting the experimental data on absorption in the 4200–5000 cm−1 spectral range and on the temperature dependence of the second virial coefficient. This line profile is used for calculation of the continuum absorption in the 1000–10 000 cm−1 range.