Frustrated Coulomb explosion of small helium clusters

Abstract

Almost ten years ago, energetic neutral hydrogen atoms were detected after a strong-field double ionization of H${}_2$. This process, called 'frustrated tunneling ionization', occurs when an ionized electron is recaptured after being driven back to its parent ion by the electric field of a femtosecond laser. In the present study we demonstrate that a related process naturally occurs in clusters without the need of an external field: we observe a charge hopping that occurs during a Coulomb explosion of a small helium cluster, which leads to an energetic neutral helium atom. This claim is supported by theoretical evidence. As an analog to 'frustrated tunneling ionization', we term this process 'frustrated Coulomb explosion'.

References in corpus (8)

• Observation of the Efimov state of the helium trimer
• Fragmentation dynamics of CO23+ investigated by multiple electron capture in collisions with slow highly charged ions
• Interatomic Coulombic Decay following Photoionization of the Helium Dimer: Observation of Vibrational Structure
• Imaging the He${}_2$ quantum halo state using a free electron laser
• A measurement of the evolution of Interatomic Coulombic Decay in the time domain
• EUV ionization of pure He nanodroplets: Mass-correlated photoelectron imaging, Penning ionization and electron energy-loss spectra
• Interatomic Coulombic decay in helium nanodroplets
• Interatomic-Coulombic-decay-induced recapture of photoelectrons in helium dimers

Cited by in corpus (4)

• Observation of intermolecular Coulombic decay in liquid water
• Direct observation of interatomic Coulombic decay and subsequent ion-atom scattering in helium nanodroplets
• Efficient Indirect Interatomic Coulombic Decay Induced by Photoelectron Impact Excitation in Large He Nanodroplets
• Structural properties of bosonic He clusters with N=2-10 for different potential models at the physical point and at unitarity