Fragmentation of positively charged metal clusters in stabilized jellium model with self-compression

Abstract

Using the stabilized jellium model with self-compression, we have calculated the dissociation energies and the barrier heights for the binary fragmentation of charged silver clusters. At each step of calculations, we have used the relaxed-state sizes and energies of the clusters. The results for the doubly charged Ag clusters predict a critical size, at which evaporation dominates the fission, in good agreement with the experiment. Comparing the dissociation energies and the fission barrier heights with the experimental ones, we conclude that in the experiments the fragmentation occurs before the full structural relaxation expected after the ionization of the cluster. In the decays of Ag$_N^{4+}$ clusters, the results predict that the charge-symmetric fission processes are dominant for smaller clusters, and the charge-asymmetric fission processes become dominant for sufficiently larger clusters.