Angular distribution of photoelectrons from polarised atoms exposed to polarised radiation

Abstract

The structure of the angular distribution of photoelectrons from polarised targets exposed to polarised radiation has been analysed in the dipole approximation. It is shown in particular that a measurement of this angular distribution without a spin polarisation measurement of the photoelectron constitutes a complete experiment for polarisable one-electron atoms and many other atoms. The completeness of the type of experiment proposed permits one to extract both magnitude and phase of all participating dipole transition amplitudes from an experimentally observed angular distribution, and represents therefore the basis for a sensitive comparison between experimental and theoretical work.