Doubly Differential Cross Sections for Ionization of Xenon by Spin-Polarized Electrons

Abstract

Even though spin-dependent effects are naturally associated with relativistic effects, it has been known for some time that significant spin asymmetries for electron-impact ionization are possible in a completely non-relativistic model if the J-state of the residual ion can be experimentally resolved. In the lowest order implementation of the same model, the spin asymmetry would vanish if the J-states of the ion are not experimentally resolved (i.e., summed over). Consequently, it is perhaps possible to search for relativistic effects by looking at asymmetries for which the final ion J-state is not resolved. There is also some experimental evidence that relativistic effects might be important for large scattering angles which are inaccessible to current experimental set-ups. If this is the case, relativistic effects might be seen in a double differential cross section measurement which integrates over all angles. Very recently, some significant experimental spin asymmetries for electron-xenon scattering have been reported for a doubly differential spin-asymmetry measurement in which the final J-state was not resolved. The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether or not these experimental results indicate relativistic effects.

Department(s)

Physics

Sponsor(s)

National Science Foundation (U.S.)

Keywords and Phrases

Atomic Physics; Molecular Physics

Document Type

Article - Journal

Document Version

Citation

File Type

text

Language(s)

English

Rights

© 2004 Institute of Physics - IOP Publishing, All rights reserved.

Publication Date

01 Nov 2004

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