Perturbative analysis of the triply differential cross section and circular dichroism in photo-double-ionization of He

Abstract

We extend application of our lowest-order perturbative approach (in electron-electron correlation) for analysis of photo-double-ionization (PDI) of He [A.Y. Istomin et al., J. Phys. B 35, L543 (2002)] to excess energies up to $450\phantom{\rule{0.3em}{0ex}}\text{eV}$ and to analysis of circular dichroism. We find that account of electron correlation in the final state to first order provides predictions for the triply differential cross section and circular dichroism that are in reasonable agreement with absolute data for excess energies up to $80\phantom{\rule{0.3em}{0ex}}\text{eV}$. For an excess energy of $450\phantom{\rule{0.3em}{0ex}}\text{eV}$, account of electron correlation in both initial and final states is necessary and the predicted triply differential cross sections are in agreement with absolute data only for large mutual ejection angles. We find that at excess energies of a few tens of eV, the PDI is dominated by the ``virtual'' knock-out mechanism, while the ``direct'' (on-shell) knock-out process gives only small contributions for large mutual ejection angles. As a result, we conclude that the circular dichroism effect at these energies originates from the nonzero electron Coulomb phase shifts.