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Neutralization of Multiply Charged Ground-State Ions by Collective Electron Transfer from an Environment

Lutz Marder1,*, Catmarna Küstner-Wetekam1, Nils Kiefer1, Johannes Viehmann1, Niklas Golchert1, Emilia Heikura1, Florian Trinter2, Denis Cubaynes3, Jérôme Palaudoux4 et al.

Francis Penent4, Arno Ehresmann1,†, Lorenz S. Cederbaum5, Přemysl Kolorenč6, and Andreas Hans1,‡

  • *Contact author: lutz.marder@uni-kassel.de
  • †Contact author: ehresmann@physik.uni-kassel.de
  • ‡Contact author: hans@physik.uni-kassel.de
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Phys. Rev. Lett. 135, 053201 – Published 30 July, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/9yd1-9gkx

Abstract

Highly charged cations are omnipresent species after the interaction of high-energy or high-intensity light with matter. When embedded in environments, the mechanism and outcome of the redistribution of the cation’s charge are crucial for the further fate of the whole system. Generally, ground-state cations can decay by charge transfer, proceeding radiatively, through nuclear dynamics, or by electron-transfer-mediated decay (ETMD). ETMD causes electron emission from a remote neighbor and appears ubiquitous in loosely bound systems. It remained unclear how multiply charged ions decay if conventional ETMD channels are closed. Here, we show that a yet undiscovered variant of ETMD is possible, where multiple electrons are collectively transferred. Explicitly, we observe ETMD in which two electrons from two distinct neighbors (partially) neutralize a multiply charged ion, and an electron from a fourth site is emitted. According to the established nomenclature, we suggest naming the process ETMD(4).

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Phys. Rev. Lett. 135, 053201– Published 30 July, 2025
  • Received 31 January 2025
  • Accepted 7 July 2025
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI.

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