Photoionization and vacancy decay of endohedral atoms

Abstract

We demonstrate the role played by the fullerene shell in the photoionization and vacancy decay of endohedral atoms A@C60. It is shown, partly in the frame of a rather simple model that describes the fullerene shell, partly using only the assumption on the smallness of the atom A in comparison to the size of C60 that it affects photoionization and the vacancy decay of A@C60 profoundly. Namely, it leads to a number of new resonances in photoionization cross-section and other photoionization characteristics as well as strong modifications of the vacancy decay probabilities and opening of new decay channels. We discuss the problem of photon propagation through the C60 shell and conclude that at any considered frequency, up to about 60 eV, the C60 enhances the incoming radiation. This shows non-metallic dielectric behavior of the 240 collectivized electrons in C60. We discuss also the C60 effects upon the fast electron inelastic scattering. The results obtained are valid qualitatively also for other than C60, e.g. for C70 or C76.