Abstract
It is shown that triple ionization (TI) of the ion is mainly formed in two ways: (i) Auger cascade following single ionization of the shell and (ii) direct double ionization (DDI) with subsequent autoionization. A good agreement with recent experimental measurements is obtained when one of electrons in the DDI process acquires all the excess energy. The study also reveals negligible contribution of the direct TI by electron impact to the process. Single-ionization cross sections of the excitation-autoionization process show large dependence on the levels of the ground configuration. The obtained results demonstrate that the ions in the parent beam mainly reside in the highest level of the ground configuration.
1 More- Received 3 November 2017
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.97.012705
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