Atomic Resonance States and Their Role in Charge-Changing Processes

Photoionization of Astrophysically Relevant Atomic Ions at PIPE

We review recent work on the photoionization of atomic ions of astrophysical interest that has been carried out at the photon-ion merged-beams setup PIPE, a permanently installed end station at the XUV beamline P04 of the PETRA III synchrotron radiation source operated by DESY in Hamburg, Germany. Our results on single and multiple L-shell photoionization of Fe+, Fe2+, and Fe3+ ions, and on single and multiple K-shell photoionization of C−, C+, C4+, Ne+, and Si2+ ions are discussed in astrophysical contexts. Moreover, these experimental results bear witness of the fact that the implementation of the photon-ion merged-beams method at one of the world’s brightest synchrotron light sources has led to a breakthrough for the experimental study of atomic inner-shell photoionization processes with ions.

Modulation of attosecond beating in resonant two-photon ionization

We present a theoretical study of the photoelectron attosecond beating due to interference of two-photon transitions in the presence of autoionizing states. We show that, as a harmonic traverses a resonance, both the phase shift and frequency of the sideband beating significantly vary with photon energy. Furthermore, the beating between two resonant paths persists even when the pump and the probe pulses do not overlap, thus providing a nonholographic interferometric means to reconstruct coherent metastable wave packets. We characterize these phenomena by means of a general analytical model that accounts for the effect of both intermediate and final resonances on two-photon processes. The model predictions are in excellent agreement with those of accurate ab initio calculations for the helium atom in the region of the N=2 doubly excited states.