Interatomic Coulombic Decay following Photoionization of the Helium Dimer: Observation of Vibrational Structure

Using synchrotron radiation we simultaneously ionize and excite one helium atom of a helium dimer (He_2) in a shakeup process. The populated states of the dimer ion (i.e. He^[*+](n = 2; 3)-He) are found to deexcite via interatomic coulombic decay. This leads to the emission of a second electron from the neutral site and a subsequent coulomb explosion. In this letter we present a measurement of the momenta of fragments that are created during this reaction. The electron energy distribution and the kinetic energy release of the two He^+ ions show pronounced oscillations which we attribute to the structure of the vibrational wave function of the dimer ion.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figure

Single photon double ionization of the helium dimer

We show that a single photon can ionize the two helium atoms of the helium dimer in a distance up to 10 {\deg}A. The energy sharing among the electrons, the angular distributions of the ions and electrons as well as comparison with electron impact data for helium atoms suggest a knock-off type double ionization process. The Coulomb explosion imaging of He_2 provides a direct view of the nuclear wave function of this by far most extended and most diffuse of all naturally existing molecules.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figure

Determination of the He-He, Ne-Ne, Ar-Ar, and H2_{2} interaction potential by wave function imaging

We report on a direct method to measure the internuclear potential energy curve of diatomic systems. A COLTRIMS reaction microscope was used to measure the squares of the vibrational wave functions of H$_{2}$, He$_{2}$, Ne$_{2}$, and Ar$_{2}$. The Schr\"odinger equation relates the curvature of the wave function to the potential V(R) and therefore offers a simple but elegant way to extract the shape of the potential.Comment: 15 pages with 4 figure

Vibrationally Resolved Decay Width of Interatomic Coulombic Decay in HeNe

We investigate the ionization of HeNe from below the He 1s3p excitation to the He ionization threshold. We observe HeNe$^+$ ions with an enhancement by more than a factor of 60 when the He side couples resonantly to the radiation field. These ions are an experimental proof of a two-center resonant photoionization mechanism predicted by Najjari et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 153002 (2010)]. Furthermore, our data provide electronic and vibrational state resolved decay widths of interatomic Coulombic decay (ICD) in HeNe dimers. We find that the ICD lifetime strongly increases with increasing vibrational state.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figure

Ion impact induced Interatomic Coulombic Decay in neon and argon dimers

We investigate the contribution of Interatomic Coulombic Decay induced by ion impact in neon and argon dimers (Ne$_2$ and Ar$_2$) to the production of low energy electrons. Our experiments cover a broad range of perturbation strengths and reaction channels. We use 11.37 MeV/u S$^{14+}$, 0.125 MeV/u He$^{1+}$, 0.1625 MeV/u He$^{1+}$ and 0.150 MeV/u He$^{2+}$ as projectiles and study ionization, single and double electron transfer to the projectile as well as projectile electron loss processes. The application of a COLTRIMS reaction microscope enables us to retrieve the three-dimensional momentum vectors of the ion pairs of the fragmenting dimer into Ne$^{q+}$/Ne$^{1+}$ and Ar$^{q+}$/Ar$^{1+}$ (q = 1, 2, 3) in coincidence with at least one emitted electron

Auger decay and subsequent fragmentation pathways of ethylene following K-shell ionization

Citation: Gaire, B., Haxton, D. J., Sturm, F. P., Williams, J., Gatton, A., Bocharova, I., . . . Weber, T. (2015). Auger decay and subsequent fragmentation pathways of ethylene following K-shell ionization. Physical Review A, 92(1), 13. doi:10.1103/PhysRevA.92.013408The fragmentation pathways and dynamics of ethylene molecules after core ionization are explored using coincident measurements of the Auger electron and fragment ions by employing the cold target recoil-ion momentum spectroscopy method. The influence of several factors on the dynamics and kinematics of the dissociation is studied. These include propensity rules, ionization mechanisms, symmetry of the orbitals from which the Auger electrons originate, multiple scattering, conical intersections, interference, and possible core-hole localization for the double ionization of this polyatomic molecule. Energy correlation maps allow probing the multidimensional potential energy surfaces and, in combination with our multiconfiguration self-consistent field calculations, identifying the populated electronic states of the dissociating dication. The measured angular distributions of the Auger electrons in the molecular frame further support and augment these assignments. The deprotonation and molecular hydrogen ion elimination channels show a nearly isotropic Auger electron angular distribution with a small elongation along the direction perpendicular to the molecular axis. For the symmetric breakup the angular distributions show a clear influence of multiple scattering on the outgoing electrons. The lowest kinetic energy release feature of the symmetric breakup channel displays a fingerprint of entangled Auger and photoelectron motion in the angular emission pattern identifying this transition as an excellent candidate to probe core-hole localization at a conical intersection of a polyatomic molecule.Additional Authors: Landers, A. L.;Belkacem, A.;Dorner, R.;Weber, T