Effect of Spin-Orbit Coupling on Decay Widths of Electronic Decay Processes

Abstract

Auger-Meitner processes are electronic decay processes of energetically low-lying vacancies. In these processes, the vacancy is filled by an electron of an energetically higher lying orbital, while another electron is simultaneously emitted to the continuum. In low-lying orbitals relativistic effects can not even be neglected for light elements. At the same time lifetime calculations are computationally expensive. In this context, we investigate which effect spin-orbit coupling has on Auger-Meitner decay widths and aim for a rule of thumb for the relative decay widths of initial states split by spin-orbit coupling. We base this rule of thumb on Auger-Meitner decay widths of Sr4$p^{-1}$ and Ra6$p^{-1}$ obtained by relativistic FanoADC-Stieltjes calculations.