Initial state dependence in multi-electron threshold ionization of atoms

Abstract

It is shown that the geometry of multi-electron threshold ionization in atoms depends on the initial configuration of bound electrons. The reason for this behavior is found in the stability properties of the classical fixed point of the equations of motion for multiple threshold fragmentation. Specifically for three-electron break-up, apart from the symmetric triangular configuration also a break-up of lower symmetry in the form of a T-shape can occur, as we demonstrate by calculating triple photoionization for the lithium ground and first excited states. We predict the electron break-up geometry for threshold fragmentation experiments.

References in corpus (3)

• Threshold Laws for the Break-up of Atomic Particles into Several Charged Fragments
• The Coulomb four-body problem in a classical framework: Triple photoionization of lithium
• Scaling laws for the photo-ionisation cross section of two-electron atoms

Cited by in corpus (8)

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• Three-electron correlations in strong laser field ionization: Spin induced effects
• Strong-field ionization of atoms with $p^3$ valence shell: Two versus three active electrons
• Frequency Resolved Optical Gating for Time-Resolving Intra-Atomic Knock-Out in Double Ionization with Attosecond Pulses
• Attosecond electron-electron collision dynamics of the four-electron escape in Be close to threshold