Mapping spin-orbit activated interchannel coupling

• Published in: Europhysics letters Vol. 106; no. 1; pp. 13001 - P1-13001-p5
• Main Authors: Dachraoui, H., van der Laan, G., Müller, N., Milde, T., Porer, M., Manzke, R., Huber, R., Fritzsche, S., Heinzmann, U.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Les Ulis EDP Sciences, IOP Publishing and Società Italiana di Fisica 01.04.2014; IOP Publishing
• Subjects: 32.30.-r; 32.80.Aa; 78.47.J; Charge transfer; Construction; Correlation; Deviation; Femtosecond; Photoelectric emission; Photoemission; Ultraviolet; Wave functions
• ISSN: 0295-5075; 1286-4854
• DOI: 10.1209/0295-5075/106/13001

Recent advances in the generation of femtosecond extreme ultraviolet pulses have opened up the possibility to study final-state wave functions in photoemission experiments. Here, we investigate, for the first time using femtosecond time-resolved core-level spectroscopy, the feasibility of observing the buildup of a state correlation in a direct time domain. Giant changes in the ratio of photoemission cross-sections of spin-orbit split core states, the branching ratio, are identified. Multi-configuration Dirac-Fock calculations show that the origin of the branching ratio deviation is due to strong core-valence interactions. The possibility to tune this interaction by charge transfer offers intriguing opportunities to study correlation effects in solid and molecular systems in the future.