Final ion charge spectra upon cascade decay of inner-shell vacancies in atomic Au

Abstract

Final ion charge spectra produced by the cascade de-excitations of 1s- to 5p 3/2-vacancies of the gold atom are calculated by direct construction and analysis of the cascade decay trees. The energies of multivacancy configurations arising in the course of the cascade development, and the partial widths of radiation and radiationless cascade transitions are calculated using the Pauli–Fock approximation. The energies of the cascade transitions are calculated as the differences of total Pauli–Fock energies of initial and final ionic configurations which allowed excluding energy-forbidden radiationless transitions in numerous multivacancy configurations. Partial widths of transitions are expressed in the form that allowed accounting for the effect of electron subshell populations on the transition widths. The partial widths of the transitions between the states of the overlapping initial and final state multiplets are corrected so as to exclude energy-forbidden transitions between the multiplet states. It is demonstrated that accurate accounting for possible forbiddance of transitions between cascade configurations and the exclusion of energy-forbidden term-to-term transitions between the multiplets’ states are crucial in deep-initial-vacancy cascade simulations.