It is generally admitted that the many-electron effects govern the shape of the discrete X-ray line and photoemission spectra. This phenomenon has been studied in bulk metals (Mahan, Nozieres and de Dominicis model) where it is characterized by two effects: the Anderson orthogonality between the initial and final ground states and the $$|E|^{\alpha _H - 1} $$ spectrum behaviour, whereE is the emitted particle energy defect (with respect to the one-electron energy) and α H (with 0<α H <1) and exponent related to the phase shifts δ at the Fermi level due to the localised hole potential. We study these two effects in limited media (closed loop shape withN=10 to 30 atoms). We observe that, asN increases, the ground state overlap tends toward zero in a way which is surprisingly close to the Anderson $$N^{ - \alpha _H /2} $$ behaviour. TheE spectra are also obtained. They are very different from the bulk which will lead to asymmetry parameters smaller for aggregates than for the bulk. A discussion of the experimental results is presented.