Experimental verification of quadrupole-dipole interference in spin-resolved photoionization

Phys Rev Lett. 2002 Jul 29;89(5):053001. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.89.053001. Epub 2002 Jul 15.

Abstract

We have measured the spin polarization of Xe (4p)(-1) photoelectrons after ionization with circularly polarized light at photon energies close to the ionization threshold where a resonant enhancement of quadrupole transitions has recently been predicted. At a reaction angle of 90 degrees a nonvanishing longitudinal spin polarization component of about 4% clearly indicates a quadrupole contribution to the photoexcitation. This is the first experimental evidence for the influence of nondipole transitions on the photoionization process at excitation energies much below 1 keV in an observable other than the intensity angular distribution.