Response to 'Comment on "Time delays in molecular photoionization"': Extended Discussion & Technical Notes

TL;DR

This paper defends the validity of their original work on time delays in molecular photoionization against a comment, clarifying misunderstandings and reaffirming the correctness of their canonical scattering theory approach.

Contribution

The paper provides a detailed rebuttal to a comment disputing their original results, clarifying theoretical misunderstandings and reaffirming the correctness of their methodology.

Findings

Numerical results are correct and reproduce known phenomena.

The formalism used aligns with canonical scattering theory.

The comment's assertions are based on a category error.

Abstract

In a comment on our article Time delays in molecular photoionization [1], Baykusheva & W\"orner reproduce canonical scattering theory, and assert that our results are inconsistent with this well-established theory [2]. We absolutely refute this assertion and the spirit of the comment, although we do agree with Baykusheva & W\"orner that the textbook theory is correct. In a short response, Response to Comment on "Time delays in molecular photoionization" [3], we have already provided a clear rebuttal of the comment, but gave no technical details. In this fuller response we extend those brief comments in the spirit of completeness and clarity, and provide three clear rebuttals to Baykusheva & W\"orner based on (1) logical fallacy (category error), (2) theoretical details of the original article, (3) textural content of the original article. In particular, rebuttal (1) clearly and trivially points to the fact that there is no issue here whatsoever, with recourse to theoretical details barely required to demonstrate this, as outlined in the short version of our response. Our numerical results are correct and reproduce known physical phenomena, as discussed in the original article hence, as careful readers will recognise, the formalism used is canonical scattering theory, and cannot be anything other. In fact, there is no new fundamental physics here to dispute whatsoever, and nor was this the raison d'etre of the original article. Additionally, rebuttal (2) provides the opportunity to discuss, at length, some of these textbook aspects of photoionization theory, and we hope this discussion might be of service to new researchers entering this challenging field.