This book was written for the benefit of young researchers in diverse disciplines ranging from experimental plasma physics to astrophysics, and graduate students wanting to enter the interdisciplinary area of research now generally called plasma spectroscopy. The author has attempted to develop the theoretical foundations of the numerous applications of plasma spectroscopy from first principles. However, some familiarity with atomic structure and collision calculations, with quantum-mechanical perturbation theory and with statistical mechanics of plasmas is assumed. The emphasis is on the quantitative mission spectroscopy of atoms and ions immersed in high-temperature plasmas and in weak radiation fields, where multi-photon processes are not important.

As in the author's previous books on plasma spectroscopy and spectral line broadening written, respectively, over three and two decades ago, various applications are discussed in considerable detail, as are the underlying critical experiments. Hopefully, the reader will find the numerous references useful and current up to the latter part of 1995. They provide advice concerning access to basic data, which are needed for the implementation of many of the experimental methods, and to descriptions of instrumentation.

The author has once more benefited from his experience in teaching special lecture courses at the University of Maryland and recently also at the Ruhr University in Bochum and some of its neighboring institutions.