Spectral shapes of Ar-broadened HCl lines in the fundamental band by classical molecular dynamics simulations and comparison with experiments.

Spectral shapes of isolated lines of HCl perturbed by Ar are investigated for the first time using classical molecular dynamics simulations (CMDS). Using reliable intermolecular potentials taken from the literature, these CMDS provide the time evolution of the auto-correlation function of the dipole moment, whose Fourier-Laplace transform leads to the absorption spectrum. In order to test these calculations, room temperature spectra of various lines in the fundamental band of HCl diluted in Ar are measured, in a large pressure range, with a difference-frequency laser spectrometer. Comparisons between measured and calculated spectra show that the CMDS are able to predict the large Dicke narrowing effect on the shape of HCl lines and to satisfactorily reproduce the shapes of HCl spectra at different pressures and for various rotational quantum numbers.