Recoil frame photoemission in inner-shell photoionization of small polyatomic molecules

Abstract

Going from a diatomic to a polyatomic linear or non-linear molecule, the description of molecular frame photoemission in photoionization of molecules involves a function of increasing complexity. Using the electron-ion Vector Correlation method, which provides the emission velocity vectors of the emitted charged particles in a dissociative photoionization reaction, generally gives access to Recoil Frame Photoelectron Angular Distributions (RFPADs). We report results for site selected inner-shell photoionization of the N2O molecule induced by elliptically polarized light, where the primary ionization reaction leads to the production of several fragmentation channels. Ion fragment kinetic energy release distributions as well as RFPADs are reported for selected two ion-channels containing the complete parent molecule. Experimental results are compared with recent multi-channel Schwinger configuration interaction (MCSCI) ab initio calculations at the level of the RFPADs. The link with the original computed molecular frame photoelectron angular distributions (MFPADs) is discussed.