Spin- and fine-structure-resolved ionization of krypton

The influence of exchange, correlation, and relativistic effects in the ionization of heavy-target atoms can be sensitively probed by kinematically complete studies involving spin-polarized electrons, in particular when the fine structure of the residual ion is resolved. We present spin asymmetries, triple differential cross sections, and branching ratios for the ionization, by 127.5-eV and 114.3-eV electrons, of ground-state krypton atoms leading to the Kr+ 4s 2S1∕2, 4p5 2P1∕2, and 4p5 2P3∕2 states. In order to untangle contributions from different physical effects, the experimental results are compared to those from distorted-wave Born approximation calculations (non- and semirelativistic) in which bound-state and continuum effects are treated in different ways. Additional insight is gained by comparing the present experimental and theoretical results to recent results on the e-Xe system, performed under similar kinematics, for which target relativistic effects play a more significant role.S. Bellm, J. Lower, R. P. McEachran, E. Weigold, C. Ryan-Anderson, and D. H. Madiso