RESUMEN
A ground-based search for stratospheric chlorine monoxide was carried out during May and October 1981 with an infrared heterodyne spectrometer in the solar absorption mode. Lines due to stratospheric nitric acid and tropospheric carbonyl sulfide were detected at about 0.2 percent absorptance levels, but the expected 0.1 percent lines of chlorine monoxide in this same region were not seen. Stratospheric chlorine monoxide is less abundant by at least a factor of 7 than is indicated by in situ measurements, and the upper limit for the integrated vertical column density of chlorine monoxide is 2.3 x 10(13) molecules per square centimeter at the 95 percent confidence level. These results imply that the release of chlorofluorocarbons may be significantly less important for the destruction of stratospheric ozone than is currently thought.
RESUMEN
Fully resolved intensity profiles of various lines in the carbon dioxide band at 10.4 micrometers have been measured on Mars with an infrared heterodyne spectrometer. Analysis of the line shapes shows that the Mars atmosphere exhibits positive gain in these lines. The detection of natural optical gain amplification enables identification of these lines as a definite natural laser.
RESUMEN
An algorithm for regenerating the input spectrum from Fabry-Perot data is derived and a few numerical experiments are presented to show how well it works.
RESUMEN
A polarization Fourier spectrometer is described that improves on the previous versions built by others and can be used from 0.3 micro to 2.5 micro. Several practical problems in the construction and data reduction are discussed, and a number of typical results are presented to show the performance of the instrument.