Orientational hole burning for dimers in the limit of large rotational quantum numbers

Abstract

Dimers can often be treated as prolate symmetric tops, with their symmetry axis along the dimer axis. In that case, thermal excitation results in J, MJ ≫ K if the moment of inertia around the dimer axis can be assumed much larger than the moment of inertia along an axis perpendicular to it. Expressions are derived which describe the near saturation behaviour of perpendicular and parallel excitations; for J, MJ ≫ K, simple analytical expressions are obtained.