In Resca’s Comment on three of our papers (preceding paper), he attributes to us a much greater criticism of the quantum-defect method applied to valence excitons than we ourselves originally intended. In this Reply, we attempt to clarify the issue (i) by stating very explicitly where we differ with the original Resca-Resta quantum-defect model, and (ii) by recapitulating the experimental results which support our conclusions. In particular, we find ourselves in full agreement with the basic Resca-Resta nonstructural theory of rare-gas excitons. Unlike the original Resca-Resta quantum-defect model, however, we attribute nonatomic contributions to the exciton short-ranged potentials.

• Received 27 August 1987

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.37.10901