“….) the states of PH 3 are degenerate (wavefunctions w + ,w À of A 1 and A 2 symmetry with the selection rule A 1 M A 2 ) leading to the middle term of the differential cross-section [8], S 2,f2i2 = 0 (instead of being negative) for dipolar transitions [15]. The calculation shows that the influence of this vanishing middle term strongly increases with increasing n, and the resulting c 0 values (in 10 À3 cm À1 atm À1 ) become too large: 146.3 instead of 102.4 for the Q R(6,6) line (observed 126.5) and 139 instead of 81.6 for the Q R(9,9) line (observed 105).…”