The transition from the adiabatic to the sudden limit in core level photoemission: A model study of a localized system

TL;DR

This study models core electron photoemission in a localized system, analyzing the transition from adiabatic to sudden limits and how various energy scales influence satellite-to-main peak ratios.

Contribution

It provides an exact numerical and an analytic solution to the model, revealing how different energy scales affect photoemission spectra during the adiabatic to sudden transition.

Findings

The transition occurs at small photoelectron energies.

Interaction introduces a new energy scale Es affecting interference.

The ratio r(omega)/r0(omega) exhibits a weak undershoot at energies around Es.

Abstract

We consider core electron photoemission in a localized system, where there is a charge transfer excitation. The system is modelled by three electron levels, one core level and two outer levels. The model has a Coulomb interaction between these levels and the continuum states into which the core electron is emitted. The model is simple enough to allow an exact numerical solution, and with a separable potential an analytic solution. We calculate the ratio r(omega) between the weights of the satellite and the main peak as a function of the photon energy omega. The transition from the adiabatic to the sudden limit takes place for quite small photoelectron kinetic energies. For such small energies, the variation of the dipole matrix element is substantial and described by the energy scale Ed. Without the coupling to the photoelectron, the corresponding ratio r0(omega) is determined by Ed and the satellite excitation energy dE. When the interaction potential with the continuum states is introduced, a new energy scale Es=1/(2Rs^2) enters, where Rs is a length scale of the interaction potential. At threshold there is typically a (weak) constructive interference between intrinsic and extrinsic contributions, and the ratio r(omega)/r0(omega) is larger than its limiting value for large omega. The interference becomes small or weakly destructive for photoelectron energies of the order Es. For larger energies r(omega)/r0(omega) therefore typically has a weak undershoot. If this undershoot is neglected, r(omega)/r0(omega) reaches its limiting value on the energy scale Es.