A spectroscopic method for the determination of temperatures in hot gaseous systems

Abstract A method is presented to measure translational temperatures in hot gases using the electronic excitation temperature describing the energy distribution over the energy levels of an atom as a suitable parameter. The energy distribution itself is determined by means of a quantitative spectroscopic technique which gives absolute values of the energy level populations. The temperature of a low-pressure oxyacetylene flame was measured and found to be 2400 ± 200 °K.