The photon-ion merged-beams technique was used at a synchrotron light source for measuring absolute cross sections of double and triple photodetachment of O − ions. The experimental photon energy range of 524-543 eV comprised the threshold for K-shell ionization. Using resolving powers of up to 13000, the position, strength and width of the below-threshold 1s 2s 2 2p 6 2 S resonance as well as the positions of the 1s 2s 2 2p 5 3 P and 1s 2s 2 2p 5 1 P thresholds for K-shell ionization were determined with high-precision. In addition, systematically enlarged multi-configuration Dirac-Fock calculations have been performed for the resonant detachment cross sections. Results from these abinitio computations agree very well with the measurements for the widths and branching fractions for double and triple detachment, if double shake-up (and -down) of the valence electrons and the rearrangement of the electron density is taken into account. For the absolute cross sections, however, a previously found discrepancy between measurements and theory is confirmed. Negative atomic ions play an important role in lowtemperature plasmas such as the upper atmosphere or the interstellar medium [1] and also in technical applications. For example, in the context of antihydrogen production, it has been proposed to use an ensemble of laser-cooled anions as a coolant for antiprotons [2]. Negative ions are fundamentally different from neutral atoms or positive ions since the extra electron in a negative ion is not only bound by the long-range Coulomb interaction with the atomic nucleus but, more importantly, also by a short-range attractive force due to the polarization of the atomic core. The accurate theoretical description of these ions still challenges the state-of-the-art quantum computations although the numbers of their bound states are generally finite. The low-excitation levels of negative ions are readily accessible by laser spectroscopy (see, e.g., [3][4][5][6]). Therefore, this technique has been a prime source of experimental information about the mutual interactions among the valence electrons.A sensitive tool for studying the interactions between the valence and the core electrons is inner-shell ionization of negative ions [7,8]. Here, we apply the photon-ion merged-beams technique (see [9] for a recent overview) to determine the absolute cross sections for double and triple ionization (detachment) of oxygen anions in the photon energy range 524-543 eV. In this energy range, a K-shell vacancy may be produced either by direct ionization of an initial 1s electron or via the formation of a resonance state by exciting one 1s electron to a higher shell such as 2p. In either case, the K-vacancy decays subsequently by a cascade of radiative and nonradiative processes leading to a distribution of final charge states with O + and O 2+ as the most prominent charged reaction products. To test and better understand the theoretical prediction of such cascades, we performed extremely comprehensive quantum calculations for the formation...

Fragment ion energy spectra of the water molecule have been measured in conventional crossed‐beam experiments by the impact of 46 keV/u energy, singly charged ions (SCIs) and 4.3 keV/u energy, highly charged ions (HCIs). Double differential cross sections have been determined and a comparative analysis has been performed. We found that the fragmentation spectra for SCIs and HCIs are very similar, indicating that both collisions lead to the same fragmentation channels. This suggests that the Coulomb explosion of the water molecule is dominantly determined by the charge state of the transient molecular ions, and it is almost independent from the primary ionization mechanism. Differences were observed not only between the SCI and HCI impact‐induced fragmentation cross sections, but between those obtained by the 60 keV N6+ and 70 keV O7+ projectiles. The differences were attributed to the selectivity of the electron capture process for HCIs. Multiple target ionization cross sections have been deduced from the fragment ion spectra. We found contributions of up to fivefold ionization for SCIs and up to sixfold ionization for HCIs.

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