Photoelectron spectroscopic studies of polyatomic molecules: Spin-polarized electrons fromTdpoint symmetry group molecules

Abstract

This paper presents a study of angle- and spin-resolved photoelectron spectroscopy in a randomly oriented nonlinear molecule in the nonrelativistic, electric dipole approximation. The theory formulated in the preceding paper has been used along with the methods of the extended point (or spin-double) group to develop, perhaps in their simplest possible forms, the expressions for the five parameters needed to specify the angular distribution of spin-polarized electrons ejected in photoionization by unpolarized, or by linearly or circularly polarized light in the $a_1$ orbital of a $T_d$ molecule. The polarization of the photoelectrons in this case is due directly to the spin-orbit interaction in molecular continua. Such angle- and spin-resolved studies will therefore provide more stringent tests of theoretical models, probes of photoionization dynamics, and a measure of the influence of the spin-orbit interaction on the continuum part of the spectrum.