K-shell photoionization ofCO and N2:is there a link between the photoelectronangular distribution and the moleculardecay dynamics?

Abstract

We have used COLTRIMS to measure theangular distribution of electrons releasedfrom the K-shell of N2 and thecarbon K-shell of CO by absorption of onelinear polarized photon. For eachionization event which leads to twocharged fragments we determine the angleof the photoelectron with respect to thefragment ion momenta. In addition wedetermine the charge state and energy ofthe molecular fragments. We find abreakdown of the axial recoilapproximation for CO for kinetic energyreleases below 10.2 eV, whereas for N2 that approximation is found to bevalid for all fragment energies.Furthermore, the photoelectron emissionspectrum for N2 is found to be thesame for the molecular breakup channelsproducing N+N+ and N+N+ + .