On the strong influence of inner shell resonances upon the outer shell photoionization of endohedral atoms

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that inner shell resonances in endohedral atoms, such as Xe inside C60, significantly influence outer shell photoionization cross-sections, leading to enhanced and complex resonance effects.

Contribution

It reveals the strong impact of inner shell confinement resonances on outer shell photoionization in endohedral atoms, a novel insight into their interaction mechanisms.

Findings

Inner shell resonances strongly affect outer shell photoionization.

Confinement resonances can enormously enhance outer shell cross-sections.

Inner shell effects dominate near their own ionization thresholds.

Abstract

It is demonstrated by the example of the Xe atom stuffed inside the C60 fullerene, that the so-called confinement resonances in 4d subshell strongly affect the photoionization cross-section of outer 5p and subvalent 5s electrons near 4d ionization threshold. It is a surprise that these narrow inner 4d shell resonances are not smeared out in the outer shell photoionization cross-section. On the contrary; the inner shell resonances affect the outer cross-section by enhancing them enormously. Close to its own photoionization thresholds, 5p and 5s photoionization cross-sections of Xe endohedral are dominated by their own confinement resonances greatly affected by the amplification of the incoming radiation intensity due to polarization by it of the C60 electron shell. In between 4d and 5p thresholds, the effect of 4d is becoming stronger while own resonances of 5p and 5s are becoming much less important.