Quadrupole photoionization of hydrogen atoms in Debye plasmas

Abstract

Although a great deal of effort has been devoted to investigating dipole photoionization of plasma-embedded atoms, far less is known about the corresponding quadrupole transitions. In the present work, quadrupole photoionization processes for the ground and excited states of hydrogen atoms in Debye plasma are explored using the method of complex coordinate rotation. The plasma shielding effects on the quadrupole photoionization cross sections are reported for a variety of Debye screening lengths and compared to the dipole results accordingly. Under the perturbation of plasma screening, shape resonances and Cooper-type minima occurring in both dipole and quadrupole photoionization cross sections are presented and discussed. Comparisons are made to other theoretical calculations for the dipole photoionization with good agreement. The present quadrupole results are the first predictions for hydrogen photoionization in Debye plasmas.