This letter presents an experimental study of vacuum-ultraviolet luminescence from low-energy electron-excited liquid xenon. Our experimental results provide strong support for the theory by [E. B. Gordon, V. V. Khmelenko and O. S. Rzhevskii, Chem. Phys. Lett. 217, 605 (1994)] which considers the rare-gas-atom excitations to be the main reason for the electron drift-velocity saturation occurring at high-electric fields in the condensed rare gases. Furthermore, our results prove the existence of hot electrons in liquid xenon and show that electron-excited liquid xenon could serve as the active medium for a novel type of excimer laser as proposed by [E. B. Gordon, O. S. Rzhevsky, and V. V. Khmelenko, Quantum Electron. 24, 227 (1994)].
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