Potential Energy Surface Reconstruction and Lifetime Determination of Molecular Double-Core-Hole States in the Hard X-Ray Regime

A combination of resonant inelastic x-ray scattering and resonant Auger spectroscopy provides complementary information on the dynamic response of resonantly excited molecules. This is exemplified for CH3I, for which we reconstruct the potential energy surface of the dissociative I 3d−2 double- core-hole state and determine its lifetime. The proposed method holds a strong potential for monitoring the hard x-ray induced electron and nuclear dynamic response of core-excited molecules containing heavy elements, where ab initio calculations of potential energy surfaces and lifetimes remain challenging

FERTILISATION STRATEGIES ACROSS EUROPE: CURRENT SITUATION, POTENTIAL AND LIMITS FOR A HARMONISED APPROACH

Peer reviewe

Quenching of the 2pnd ¹P^o doubly excited states of helium by a dc electric field

The fluorescence yield quenching of low-lying doubly excited 2pnd 1Po states is observed to depend strongly on a dc electric field strength and its orientation with respect to the polarization of the incoming photon beam. The reduction of the yield accompanied by the lifetime shortening is attributed to the Stark mixing with the neighboring 2sns 1Se states, which redirects the 2pnd 1Po decay to the prompt autoionization channel. For n≥4, the lifetimes decrease from several hundred picoseconds down to several tens of picoseconds when an electric field in the kV/cm range is applied parallel to the photon probe polarization. Practically no lifetime change is observed for polarization perpendicular to the electric field direction. The results of the complex-scaling calculations are in a good agreement with the experimental data

Interference of two-photon transitions induced by XUV light

International audienceThe relative phase of first ( ω 1 ) and third harmonics ( ω 3 ) extreme ultraviolet light pulses was varied to control the population of the 2 s 2 state in helium through the interference of ω 1 + ω 1 and ω 3 − ω 1 two-photon excitation paths. The population was monitored by observing the total electron yield due to the 2 s 2 autoionization decay. Maximum yield occurs when the relative phase of the two harmonics matches the phase difference of complex atomic amplitudes governing the two excitation paths. The calculated trend of atomic phase differences agrees well with the measured data in the spectral region of the resonance, provided that time-reversed − ω 1 + ω 3 path is also taken into account. These results open the way to accessing phase differences of two-photon ionization paths involving energetically distant intermediate states and to perform interferometry in the extreme ultraviolet range by monitoring final state populations