Publication in Physical Review Letters

A group of researchers from the F2 department (M. Žitnik, M. Kavčič, K. Bučar, M. Hrast, A. Mihelič and J. Turnšek) together with French colleagues from the LCPMR Laboratory published an article entitled Shake-up Assisted Photoelectron Recapture in the Physical Review Letters journal. The article reports on a new type of decay of atomic states involving three electrons. The fingerprint of the three-particle decay was found in the modified form of the KM-LLM spectral line in the resonant Auger spectrum of argon, caused by interference with the thousandfold more likely decay involving just two electrons. The experiment was carried out at the GALAXIES beamline at the SOLEIL synchrotron near Paris. At the same time, a comprehensive accompanying article was published in the Physical Review A journal, showing and analyzing the spectral map of the resonant Auger decay of doubly excited states 1^s-13^p-1nln'l' in argon.