Highly correlated electronic bounding and spin effect: confirmation of an autodetaching state of O$^-$

TL;DR

This paper confirms the existence of a long-lived auto-detaching state of O$^-$ through experimental measurements and theoretical calculations, providing new insights into oxygen anion metastability.

Contribution

It presents the first combined experimental and theoretical validation of a 100-ns lifetime auto-detaching state of O$^-$, advancing understanding of oxygen anion metastability.

Findings

Measured lifetime of 100 ± 10 ns for O$^-$ auto-detaching state

Theoretical lifetime calculation yields 75 ns for the same state

Identification of the state as (2p$^3$3s$^2$)$^4$S of O$^-$

Abstract

The existence of an auto-detaching state of O$^-$ with a lifetime on the scale of a hundred nanoseconds is demonstrated both experimentally and theoretically. The O$^-$ lifetime values are determined using two recently developed methods. The experimental approach is based on a derivation from measured electron-loss cross sections combined with time-of-flight spectrometry. For the theoretical approach, the continued Green's function within the formalism of Fano-Feshbach is applied. We present the measured lifetime value of $100 \pm 10 \text{ ns}$. The calculated lifetime value is 75 ns, and is associated with the (2p$^3$3s$^2$)$^4$S state of O$^-$. We discuss how the existence of a 100-ns-lifetime oxygen metastable anion can impact the modeling of oxygen-containing systems.