Back-to-back emission of the electrons in double photoionization of helium

Abstract

We calculate the double differential distributions and distributions in recoil momenta for the high energy non-relativistic double photoionization of helium atom. We show that the results of recent experiments provide the pioneering experimental manifestation of the quasifree mechanism for the double photoionization which was predicted long ago in our papers. This mechanism provides a surplus in distribution over the recoil momenta at small values of the latter, corresponding to nearly “back-to-back” emission of the photoelectrons. Also, in agreement with previous analysis we demonstrate that this surplus is due to the quadrupole terms of the photon-electron interaction. We present the characteristic angular distribution for the back-to-back electron emission. The confirmation of the quasifree mechanism existence opens a new area for exciting experiments, which are expected to increase our understanding of the electron dynamics and of the bound states structure.