Electronic decay cascades in media initiated by resonant absorption of X-Ray photons

The resonant-Auger -- interatomic Coulombic decay (RA-ICD) cascade was recently proposed as a very efficient means of controlling the generation site and energies of slow ICD electrons. The control mechanism was verified in a series of experiments where both the energy of the photons producing the initial core excitation, and the neighbouring species were varied. The aim of this thesis is to provide a detailed theoretical investigation of the RA-ICD cascade in rare-gas dimers and give a first insight into the course of the cascade in aqueous medium. The potential energy curves (PECs) of ionisation satellites are key ingredients in the theoretical description of electronic decay cascades. In the first chapter, we conducted a study on the PECs of the ionisation satellites of the ArHe dimer with a view to modelling such PECs in heavier dimers. Our results show that the complex valence structure in the rare-gas atom leads to the mixing of different electronic configurations of the dimer, which prevents one from assigning a single dicationic parent state to some of the ionisation satellites. In the second part of the thesis, we present and analyse the ICD-electron and kinetic-energy-release (KER) spectra following different resonant core excitations of Ar in the rare-gas dimers Ar$_2$ and ArKr. We demonstrate that the manifold of ICD states populated in the resonant Auger process consists of fast- and slow-decaying ionisation satellites, and that the accurate description of nuclear dynamics in the latter ICD states is crucial for obtaining theoretical electron and KER spectra in good agreement with the experiment. We also show that by varying the neighbouring atom one can tune the energies of the emitted ICD electrons and even control the ICD yield. Finally, as a first step towards the investigation of the RA-ICD cascade in aqueous medium, we present and discuss the X-Ray absorption spectra of microsolvated clusters of Na$^{+}$ and Mg$^{2+}$ at the metal 1s threshold. In this case it is important to investigate the nature of the core-excited states prior to studying the RA-ICD cascade, since in a solution the excited electron is delocalised and may ionise within the lifetime of the core hole, thus changing the course of the cascade. Our findings show that for a complete first solvation shell, the excited electron becomes spatially extended towards the water molecules

Interatomic Coulombic electron capture from first principles

Interatomic Coulombic electron capture (ICEC) is an environment-assisted process in which a free electron can efficiently attach to an ion, atom or molecule by transferring the excess energy to a neighboring species. Absolute cross sections are necessary to evaluate the relative importance of this process. In this work, we employ the R-matrix method to compute ab initio these cross sections for a singly charged neon ion embedded in small helium clusters. Our results show that the ICEC cross sections are several orders of magnitude higher than anticipated and dominate other competing processes. Electron energy loss spectra on an absolute scale are provided for the Ne+@He20 cluster. Such spectra exhibit an unambiguous signature of the ICEC process. The finding is expected to stimulate experimental observations

The virtual photon approximation for three-body interatomic Coulombic decay

Interatomic Coulombic decay (ICD) is a mechanism which allows microscopic objects to rapidly exchange energy. When the two objects are distant, the energy transfer between the donor and acceptor species takes place via the exchange of a virtual photon. On the contrary, recent ab initio calculations have revealed that the presence of a third passive species can significantly enhance the ICD rate at short distances due to the effects of electronic wave function overlap and charge transfer states [Phys. Rev. Lett. 119, 083403 (2017)]. Here, we develop a virtual photon description of three-body ICD, showing that a mediator atom can have a significant influence at much larger distances. In this regime, this impact is due to the scattering of virtual photons off the mediator, allowing for simple analytical results and being manifest in a distinct geometry-dependence which includes interference effects. As a striking example, we show that in the retarded regime ICD can be substantially enhanced or suppressed depending on the position of the ICD-inactive object, even if the latter is far from both donor and acceptor species

On the computations of interatomic Coulombic decay widths with R-matrix method

Interatomic Coulombic Decay (ICD) is a general mechanism in which an excited atom can transfer its excess energy to a neighbor which is thus ionized. ICD belongs to the family of Feshbach resonance processes, and, as such, states undergoing ICD are characterized by their energy width. In this work, we investigate the computations of ICD widths using the R-matrix method as implemented in the UKRmol package. Helium dimer is used here as a benchmark system. The results are compared with those obtained with the well established Fano-Algebraic Diagrammatic Construction method. It is shown that the R-matrix method in its present implementation provides accurate total and partial widths if the kinetic energy of the ICD electron is lower than 10 eV. Advantages and limitations of the R-matrix method on the computations of ICD widths are discussed

Competition between proton transfer and intermolecular Coulombic decay in water

Intermolecular Coulombic decay (ICD) is a ubiquitous relaxation channel of electronically excited states in weakly bound systems, ranging from dimers to liquids. As it is driven by electron correlation, it was assumed that it will dominate over more established energy loss mechanisms, for example fluorescence. Here, we use electron–electron coincidence spectroscopy to determine the efficiency of the ICD process after 2a1 ionization in water clusters. We show that this efficiency is surprisingly low for small water clusters and that it gradually increases to 40–50% for clusters with hundreds of water units. Ab initio molecular dynamics simulations reveal that proton transfer between neighboring water molecules proceeds on the same timescale as ICD and leads to a configuration in which the ICD channel is closed. This conclusion is further supported by experimental results from deuterated water. Combining experiment and theory, we infer an intrinsic ICD lifetime of 12–52 fs for small water clusters

On the computations of decay widths of Fano resonances

International audienceIn this paper we present an ab initio approach to the computation of decay widths of Fano resonances. The method relies on Fano theory, in which a resonance is described as a bound state embedded in and interacting with a continuum of states. In our approach, we use the Configuration Interaction (CI) method to describe the bound-like and continuum-like parts of the resonance wave function. The aim of this Fano-CI method is to provide decay widths of resonances at a low computational cost such that large systems can be treated. Along with the implementation of the method, we present benchmark calculations of decay widths of Auger and ICD processes in Ne atom, and Ne 2 and NeAr dimers. Our results are in good agreement with the decay widths from other theoretical and experimental works. This makes the Fano-CI approach a promising method for the treatment of Fano resonances. * Electronic address: [email protected]

Inner-valence Auger decay in hydrocarbon molecules

International audienceWe have theoretically studied the Auger effect after inner-valence ionization of several unsaturated and saturated cyclic and linear hydrocarbon molecules. These prototype molecules were chosen such that the effects of the different characteristics of aromaticity (π electrons, conjugation, cyclic geometry) on the Auger decay can be investigated separately. We show that among these molecules, the ones having π electrons can undergo Auger decay after inner-valence ionization. Furthermore, the results reported here suggest that conjugation allows for several open Auger decay channels while aromaticity limits the range of the latter

Artificial Intelligence for Pigment Classification Task in the Short-Wave Infrared Range

Hyperspectral reflectance imaging in the short-wave infrared range (SWIR, “extended NIR”, ca. 1000 to 2500 nm) has proven to provide enhanced characterization of paint materials. However, the interpretation of the results remains challenging due to the intrinsic complexity of the SWIR spectra, presenting both broad and narrow absorption features with possible overlaps. To cope with the high dimensionality and spectral complexity of such datasets acquired in the SWIR domain, one data treatment approach is tested, inspired by innovative development in the cultural heritage field: the use of a pigment spectral database (extracted from model and historical samples) combined with a deep neural network (DNN). This approach allows for multi-label pigment classification within each pixel of the data cube. Conventional Spectral Angle Mapping and DNN results obtained on both pigment reference samples and a Buddhist painting (thangka) are discussed

Observation of fast and slow interatomic Coulombic decay in argon dimers induced by electron-impact ionization

International audienceWe investigate the interatomic Coulombic decay (ICD) in argon dimers induced by electron-impact ionization (E 0 = 90 eV) using a multi-particle coincidence experiment in which the momentum vectors and, consequently, the kinetic energies for electrons and fragment ions are determined. The signature of the ICD process is obtained from a correlation map between ejected electron energy and kinetic energy release (KER) for Ar + +Ar + fragment ions where low-energy ICD electrons can be identified. Furthermore, two types of ICD processes, termed fast and slow interatomic decay, are separated by the ICD initial state energies and projectile energy losses. The dependence of the energies of emitted low-energy ICD electrons on the initial state energy is studied. ICD electron energy spectra and KER spectra are obtained separately for fast and slow decay processes where the KER spectra for the slow decay channel are strongly influenced by nuclear motion. The KER and ICD electron energy spectra are well reproduced by ab initio calculations

Mechanism of superexchange Interatomic Coulombic decay in rare gas clusters

International audienceInteratomic Coulombic Decay (ICD) is an ultrafast energy transfer process. Via ICD, an excited atom can transfer its excess energy to a neighboring atom which is thus ionized. On the example of NeHeNe cluster, we recently reported [Phys. Rev. Lett. 119, 083403 (2017)] that the total ICD widths are substantially enhanced in the presence of an ICD inactive atom. The enhancement occurs due to the coupling of the resonance state to intermediate virtual states of the bridge atom-a mechanism named superexchange ICD. In this follow-up work, we analyze the partial ICD widths in NeHeNe cluster and show that only some channels are affected by the superexchange ICD process. Furthermore, we consider superexchange ICD in NeHeAr. We show that in this system the enhancement is still present but the energy transfer mediated by the superexchange mechanism is less efficient than in NeHeNe owing to the different ionization potentials of Ar and Ne. The behavior of the computed ICD widths is explained with a simple model based on first-order perturbation theory and a Hartree-Fock-like description of the states