Dissociation dynamics of the water dication following one-photon double ionization. II. Experiment

Abstract

Author(s): Reedy, D; Williams, JB; Gaire, B; Gatton, A; Weller, M; Menssen, A; Bauer, T; Henrichs, K; Burzynski, P; Berry, B; Streeter, ZL; Sartor, J; Ben-Itzhak, I; Jahnke, T; Dorner, R; Weber, T; Landers, AL | Abstract: We demonstrate the use of cold target recoil ion momentum spectroscopy to perform state-selective measurements of the dissociative channels following single-photon double-ionization of H2O. The two dominant dissociation channels observed lead to two-body (OH++H++2e-) and three-body (2H++O+2e-) ionic fragmentation channels. In the two-body case we observe the presence of an autoionization process with a double-differential cross section that is similar to the single-photon double-ionization of helium well above threshold. In the three-body case, momentum and energy correlation maps in conjunction with new classical trajectory calculations in the companion theory paper by Z. L. Streeter et al. [Phys. Rev. A 98, 053429 (2018)10.1103/PhysRevA.98.053429] lead to the determination of the eight populated dication states and their associated fragmentation geometry. For the latter case, state-specific relative cross sections, median kinetic energy releases, and median angles between asymptotic proton momenta are presented. This benchmark-level experiment demonstrates that, in principle, state-selective fixed-frame triple-differential cross sections can be measured for some dication states of the water molecule.