Charge-Excitation Final States: Satellites

Abstract

Atoms, molecules and solids are many-electron systems. Since the electrons interact with each other via the Coulomb and exchange interaction, the emission of one electron after the photoexcitation process can and must lead to excitations in the remaining system. These excitations require energy and therefore lead to signals in the PE spectrum with a smaller kinetic energy (larger binding energy) than the signal corresponding to the ground state of the system after the PE process. This means that the PE spectrum must consist of the “main” line (representing the ground state after photoexcitation) and a number of “extra” (satellite) lines representing the excited states.