Journal of Physical Chemistry A, Vol.121, No.17, 3234-3238, 2017
Three-Body Fragmentation from Single Ionization of Water by Electron Impact: The Role of Satellite States
Ionization of water with energy transfers close to the 2a(1) inner valence orbital is accompanied by a fast electronic rearrangement driven by electron relaxation and electronelectron correlations. Quasi-degenerate single vacancy and satellites one-electron-two-vacancies excited states in outer shells are created and leave their fingerprints in the three-body fragmentation pattern. Single vacancy states have been associated with Auger decay and double ionization. Satellite excited states are here convincingly assigned to single ionization. We focus on the H-0 + O+ + H-0 fragmentation by electron impact taking advantage of the high sensitivity of the delayed extraction time-of-flight technique to uncover kinematic attributes of suprathermal O+ ions. It is found that the H-0 ejections occur under a large angular rearrangement, in an approximate linear geometry, and leaving the O+ near at rest, with similar to 50% of the O+ produced in water fragmentation by swift electrons presenting this feature.