MULTIPLE SCATTERING THEORY OF PHOTOELECTRON ANGULAR DISTRIBUTIONS FROM ORIENTED DIATOMIC MOLECULES

Abstract

We use multiple scattering photoelectron diffraction (MSPD) theory to calculate the angular patterns of electrons photoemitted from the K-shell of CO and N 2 gas-phase oriented molecules, as recently measured by several groups. For low (E < 50 eV ) kinetic energies of the photoemitted electron, the electron scattering cannot be adequately represented by spherically symmetric potentials. We thus include nonspherical scattering potentials in our formalism through nondiagonal scattering matrices. We show that intramolecular scattering and interference are responsible for the experimentally measured patterns. This MSPD approach represents a more accurate and versatile method for dealing with such angular distributions as compared to prior calculations of these effects.