Empirical fits to the Voigt line width: A brief review

Abstract We briefly review previous attempts to obtain useful empirical expressions for the width of the Voigt line. We present a new empirical fit, quite different in form, which is accurate to within ±0.01% for any combination of Lorentz (pressure) and doppler line widths. We also show a simple modification to the expression given by Whiting which attains an accuracy of approx. ±0.02%.