Experimental (e, 2e) study of exchange interferences in the resonant Auger decay of Ar induced by electron impact

Any two autoionizing resonances with a common final ionic state can be made to interfere by an appropriate selection of electron impact energy. To reveal the exchange interference effects a selective detection of electron pairs related to the selected final state is desired. We have performed a constant ionic state (e, 2e) experiment (CIS) isolating the final state by keeping the sum of transmission energies of two independent electron spectrometers constant. In the focus of this work are the exchange interference effects of 2p3/2−14p and 2p1/2−14p resonances in argon decaying to the 3p−2(D1)4p2P,D2 final ionic state with energy EF = 37.3 ± 0.2 eV. We have developed a method to experimentally verify for the exchange interference effect. It is based on a comparison of the CIS spectrum recorded at the critical primary electron energy that activates the interferences, and the constructed, interference-free CIS spectrum that is build up from the CIS spectrum measured at primary electron energy away from the critical value. The results possibly indicate small exchange interference effects that may have been considerably smeared out at present experimental energy resolution.