X-ray line shapes of metals: Exact solutions of a final-state interaction model

Abstract

By means of model calculations for an independent-electron metal, we obtain exact line shapes for the photon absorption, emission, and photoemission spectra of core states, including electronic relaxation. In all cases we find an x-ray edge anomaly. For the absorption and emission spectra this anomaly is superposed on a continuum resembling Elliott exciton theory. We display how the spectra evolve from the exciton limit to the free-electron limit as the final-state interaction strength is decreased or the Fermi energy increased. We compare the spectra obtained for different final-state interactions and find that different types of interactions produce different spectral shapes. Away from threshold the absorption and emission profiles show an enhancement of the free-electron result, as predicted by the screened-exciton theory. Our results offer potential explanations for (i) incompatibilities between threshold exponents and exponents extracted from other data, (ii) the occurrence of nearly symmetric x-ray photoemission lines, and (iii) the lack of mirror symmetry of absorption and emission edges.