The photon-ion merged-beams experiment PIPE at PETRAIII - The first five years

TL;DR

The PIPE facility at PETRA III has enabled significant advances in photon-ion interaction studies, including photoionization and photofragmentation, over its first five years of operation since 2013.

Contribution

This paper reviews five years of scientific results from the PIPE experiment, highlighting its unique capabilities and breakthroughs in photon-ion merged-beams research.

Findings

Advances in photoionization of astrophysically relevant ions

Quantitative analysis of multi-electron processes

High-precision spectroscopy of ion resonances

Abstract

The Photon-Ion Spectrometer at PETRA III - in short, PIPE - is a permanently installed user facility at the "Variable Polarization XUV Beamline" P04 of the synchrotron light source PETRA III operated by DESY in Hamburg, Germany. The careful design of the PIPE ion-optics in combination with the record-high photon flux at P04 has lead to a breakthrough in experimental studies of photon interactions with ionized small quantum systems. This short review provides an overview over the published scientific results from photon-ion merged-beams experiments at PIPE that were obtained since the start of P04 operations in 2013. The topics covered comprise photoionization of ions of astrophysical relevance, quantitative studies of multi-electron processes upon inner-shell photoexcitation and photoionization of negative and positive atomic ions, precision spectroscopy of photoionization resonances, photoionization and photofragmentation of molecular ions and of endohedral fullerene ions.