Photoinduced K-shell hollow atoms

The mechanisms leading to the production of hollow K shell atoms via single photon impact were investigated for a variety of light elements with 12 ≤ Z ≤ 23. The double 1s vacancy states were produced by irradiating the samples with intense monoenergetic synchrotron radiation beams. The double-to-single K-shell photoionization probabilities PKK and the absolute double K-shell photoionization cross sections σ²⁺ were determined by measuring with a high-resolution bent von Hamos crystal spectrometer the Kαh hypersatellite X-ray emission of the samples. The measurements were performed over a wide range of incoming photon energies from threshold up to energies beyond the broad maximum of the double-to-single photoionization cross section ratios. The PKK and σ²⁺ were determined from the relative yields of the resolved Kαh hypersatellite lines. For Mg, Al and Si, the two-electron one-photon (TEOP) Kααh transitions which represent an alternative but much weaker decay channel for double 1s vacancy states could be also observed, using a highly efficient flat crystal wavelength dispersive spectrometer. This observation of single photon-induced TEOP transitions has shown that the I(Kαh)/I(Kααh) branching ratios are very poorly reproduced by most of existing theoretical models. Besides the relative yields of the hypersatellite and TEOP transitions, the energies and natural linewidths of the Kαh and Kααh X-ray lines were also determined. The energies are found to be in good agreement with different theoretical predictions, whereas the linewidths are significantly underestimated by the calculations, except if non-lifetime broadening effects such as the outer-shell ionization and the open valence configuration are taken into consideration.