On the free electron state in the internal conversion and on the relation ICC?|?(0)|2 for Tc-99m

Abstract

The final continuum electron states in the internal conversion (IC) process are considered under two points of view:1) Regarding the potential for the free electron we use neither the unchanged atomic potential (no-hole model) nor the Rose- or the Band-hole model, but we apply another model which is introduced and discussed. The differences between the models are significant for low kinetic energies (a few keV).2) Changes of the chemical or ionization state of the atom cause variations of the IC coefficients (ICC) not only via the bound states (proportionality relation ICC∼|Ψ(0)|2), but in principle via the continuum states, too, especially for low kinetic energies or for inner shells. This effect is examined for the transition of Tc-99m (2.17keV;E3) with variation of the transition energy. For the non-s-subshells it turns out that the simple proportionality relation holds for the Tc-99m transition, but for lower energy it has to be extended to the free electron wave functions. In thes-shells there appear discrepancies with decreasing energy even from the extended proportionality relation. A short description of the used ICC code is included in the paper.