Multi-electron correlation spectroscopy of atoms and molecules : Focus on buckminsterfullerene

Abstract: Correlated many-particle dynamics in Coulombic systems is one of today‟s grand challenges in physics. In order to address this task, the electronic structure and electron correlations of multiply ionised systems are studied in this thesis, aiming to obtain information on the dynamics of electron emission processes at unprecedented ease and high resolution. State-of-the-art multi-electron correlation spectrometers are used, which were originally developed at Oxford University, UK, and which are now frequently in use at the Ångström laboratory in Uppsala, Sweden.The research is so far based mainly on single-photon excitations using laboratory light sources and synchrotron radiation facilities, and expands now gradually into non-linear and time-resolved studies of atoms, molecules and clusters using high intensive Free Electron Lasers (FEL) in the Vacuum Ultra-Violet (VUV) and X-ray spectral region. This development is highly relevant for even more deep-going applications regarding the ion and excited-state balance in the Earth‟s outer atmosphere and in astrophysical contexts, for photochemistry and biochemistry, for materials science, and to test current atomic and molecular structure theories to their limits.We will focus on the multiple ionization of the buckminsterfullerene (C60) which is of scientific interest as an exceptionally stable and symmetric cluster. Its applications are quite large in nanotechnologies.