No Arabic abstract
We present a theoretical study on polarization-averaged molecular-frame photoelectron angular distributions (PA-MFPADs) emitted from $1s$ orbital of oxygen atom of dissociating dicationic carbon monoxide CO$^{2+}$. Due to the polarization-average, contribution of direct wave of photoelectron which has the biggest contribution to MFPADs is removed, so that PA-MFPADs clearly show the detail of scattering image of the photoelectron. As a result, it is necessary to employ well precise theory for the continuum state for the theoretical analysis. In this study, we applied our Full-potential multiple scattering theory, where the space is partitioned by using Voronoi polyhedra and truncated spheres to take into account the electron charge density outside the physical atomic spheres. We did not use spherical harmonic expansion of the cell shape functions to avoid convergence problems.The potentials in scattering cells are prepared employing Multiconfigurational Second-Order Perturbation Theory Restricted Active Space (RASPT2) method in order to take into account the influence of core hole in the electron charge density in the final state to realize realistic relaxation. We showed that the Full-potential treatment plays an important role for the PA-MFPADs at 100 eV of kinetic energy of photoelectron. Instead, the PA-MFPADs are not sensitive to type of major excited state in the Auger final state.We also studied the dynamics of CO$^{2+}$ dissociation. We found that the PA-MFPADs dramatically change its shape as a function of C-O bond length.
Recent developments of high-reputation-rate X-ray free electron lasers (XFELs) such as European XFEL and LSCS-II, combined with coincidence measurements at the COLTRIMS-Reaction Microscope, is now opening a door to realize a long-standing dream to create molecular movies of photo-induced chemical reactions of gas-phase molecules. In this paper, we theoretically propose a new method to experimentally visualize dissociation of diatomic molecules via time-resolved polarization-averaged molecular-frame photoelectron angular distributions (PA-MFPADs) measurements using the COLTRIMs--Reaction Microscope and two-color XFEL pump-probe set-up. The first and second order scattering theories with the Muffin-tin approximation give us simple EXAFS type formula for the forward and backward scattering peaks in the PA-MFPADs structure. This formula acts as an experimentally applicable bond length ruler by adjusting only three semi-empirical parameters from the time-resolved measurements. The accuracy and applicability of a new ruler equation are numerically examined against the PA-MFPADs of CO<sup>2+</sup> calculated by Full-potential multiple scattering theory as a function of the C-O bond length reported in the preceding work. The bond lengths retrieved from the PA-MFPADs via the EXAFS formula well reproduce the original C-O bond lengths used in the reference <i>ab-initio</i> PA-MFPADs with accuracy of 0.1 {AA}. We expect that time-resolved PA-MFPADs will be a new attractive tool to make molecular movies visualizing intramolecular reactions.
The application of a matrix-based reconstruction protocol for obtaining Molecular Frame (MF) photoelectron angular distributions (MFPADs) from laboratory frame (LF) measurements (LFPADs) is explored. Similarly to other recent works on the topic of MF reconstruction, this protocol makes use of time-resolved LF measurements, in which a rotational wavepacket is prepared and probed via photoionization, followed by a numerical reconstruction routine; however, in contrast to other methodologies, the protocol developed herein does not require determination of photoionization matrix elements, and consequently takes a relatively simple numerical form (matrix transform making use of the Moore-Penrose inverse). Significantly, the simplicity allows application of the method to the successful reconstruction of MFPADs for polyatomic molecules. The scheme is demonstrated numerically for two realistic cases, $N_2$ and $C_2H_4$. The new technique is expected to be generally applicable for a range of MF reconstruction problems involving photoionization of polyatomic molecules.
We present an experimental and theoretical study of core-level ionization of small hetero- and homo-nuclear molecules employing circularly polarized light and address molecular-frame photoelectron angular distributions in the lights polarization plane (CP-MFPADs). We find that the main forward-scattering peaks of CP-MFPADs are slightly tilted with respect to the molecular axis. We show that this tilt angle can be directly connected to the molecular bond length by a simple, universal formula. The extraction of the bond length becomes more accurate as the photoelectron energy is increased. We apply the derived formula to several examples of CP-MFPADs of C 1s and O 1s photoelectrons of CO, which have been measured experimentally or obtained by means of ab initio modeling. The photoelectron kinetic energies range from 70 to 1000~eV and the extracted bond lengths agree well with the known bond length of the CO molecule in its ground state. In addition, we discuss the influence of the back-scattering contribution that is superimposed over the analyzed forward-scattering peak in case of homo-nuclear diatomic molecules as N$_2$.
We describe the results of experiments and simulations performed with the aim of extending photoelectron spectroscopy with intense laser pulses to the case of molecular compounds. Dimer frame photoelectron angular distributions generated by double ionization of N$_2$-N$_2$ and N$_2$-O$_2$ van der Waals dimers with ultrashort, intense laser pulses are measured using four-body coincidence imaging with a reaction microscope. To study the influence of the first-generated molecular ion on the ionization behavior of the remaining neutral molecule we employ a two-pulse sequence comprising of a linearly polarized and a delayed elliptically polarized laser pulse that allows distinguishing the two ionization steps. By analysis of the obtained electron momentum distributions we show that scattering of the photoelectron on the neighbouring molecular potential leads to a deformation and rotation of the photoelectron angular distribution as compared to that measured for an isolated molecule. Based on this result we demonstrate that the electron momentum space in the dimer case can be separated, allowing to extract information about the ionization pathway from the photoelectron angular distributions. Our work, when implemented with variable pulse delay, opens up the possibility of investigating light-induced electronic dynamics in molecular dimers using angularly resolved photoelectron spectroscopy with intense laser pulses.
We investigate angular emission distributions of the 1s-photoelectrons of N$_2$ ionized by linearly polarized synchrotron radiation at $h u=40$ keV. As expected, nondipole contributions cause a very strong forward-backward asymmetry in the measured emission distributions. In addition, we observe an unexpected asymmetry with respect to the polarization direction, which depends on the direction of the molecular fragmentation. In particular, photoelectrons are predominantly emitted in the direction of the forward nitrogen atom. This observation cannot be explained via asymmetries introduced by the initial bound and final continuum electronic states of the oriented molecule. The present simulations assign this asymmetry to a novel nontrivial effect of the recoil imposed to the nuclei by the fast photoelectrons and high-energy photons, which results in a propensity for the ions to break up along the axis of the recoil momentum. The results are of particular importance for the interpretation of future experiments at XFELs operating in the few tens of keV regime, where such nondipole and recoil effects will be essential.