Argon-ion charge distributions following near-threshold ionization

When an atom is photoionized in an inner shell, there are two mechanisms by which the remaining electron cortege relaxes to fill the vacancy: x-ray emission and radiationless Auger and Coster-Kronig transitions. In the former, the inner-shell hole moves to a less tightly bound orbital without increasing the number of atomic vacancies. In Auger processes, however, the energy liberated by transfer of a less-tightly-bound electron to the inner-shell vacancy is transferred to another electron which is ejected into the continuum. In this case, the charge on the residual ion increases by one. Through a series of radiative and non-radiative processes, the initial vacancy bubbles up until all vacancies arrive at the outermost shell. Due to the many possible routes by which this may occur, there can be a broad distribution of residual ion charge states characteristic of the decay of a single inner-shell vacancy. Because so many processes can contribute to each charge state, it is difficult to determine the effect of each by examining the total ion charge distribution; the total-ion charge distribution represents an average over many effects. To overcome this limitation, the author has recently measured argon-ion production as a function of both photon energy and Auger decay channel following photoionization of K-shell electrons with highly monochromatic synchrotron radiation. When measured differential in decay channel, the ion charge distributions are greatly simplified. Analysis, in progress, of these simplified distributions will permit extraction of information about relative decay rates and shakeoff effects that is obscured in the single spectra