On the interactions of the high energy photoelectrons with the fullerene shell

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that high-energy photoelectrons strongly interact with the fullerene shell in endohedral systems, causing inelastic processes that dominate over static potential descriptions, especially at broad energy ranges.

Contribution

It provides a theoretical analysis showing the near-unity probability of fullerene shell excitation during photoionization, emphasizing the importance of inelastic interactions over static potential models.

Findings

High probability of fullerene shell excitation during photoionization.

Inelastic processes are crucial and cannot be neglected in modeling interactions.

Static potential models are insufficient for describing photoelectron-fullerene interactions.

Abstract

The probability that photoionization of the caged atom in an endohedral system is accompanied by excitation of the fullerene shell is shown to be close to unity in broad intervals of the photoelectron energies. The result is obtained by summation of the perturbative series for the interaction between the photoelectron and the fullerene shell. This result means that the interaction between the photoelectron ejected from the cage atom and the fullerene shell cannot be described by a static potential, since inelastic processes become decisively important.