Nonadiabatic effects in resonant inelastic x-ray scattering

Time-Dependent Resonant Inelastic X-ray Scattering of Pyrazine at the Nitrogen K-Edge: A Quantum Dynamics Approach

We calculate resonant inelastic X-ray scattering spectra of pyrazine at the nitrogen K-edge in the time domain including wavepacket dynamics in both the valence and core-excited state manifolds. Upon resonant excitation, we observe ultrafast non-adiabatic population transfer between core-excited states within the core-hole lifetime, leading to molecular symmetry distortions. Importantly, our time-domain approach inherently contains the ability to manipulate the dynamics of this process by detuning the excitation energy, which effectively shortens the scattering duration. We also explore the impact of pulsed incident X-ray radiation, which provides a foundation for state-of-the-art time-resolved experiments with coherent pulsed light sources.

Breaking the Symmetry of Pyrimidine: Solvent Effects and Core-Excited State Dynamics

Symmetry and its breaking crucially define the chemical properties of molecules and their functionality. Resonant inelastic X-ray scattering is a local electronic structure probe reporting on molecular symmetry and its dynamical breaking within the femtosecond scattering duration. Here, we study pyrimidine, a system from the C_2v point group, in an aqueous solution environment, using scattering though its 2a₂ resonance. Despite the absence of clean parity selection rules for decay transitions from in-plane orbitals, scattering channels including decay from the 7b₂ and 11a₁ orbitals with nitrogen lone pair character are a direct probe for molecular symmetry. Computed spectra of explicitly solvated molecules sampled from a molecular dynamics simulation are combined with the results of a quantum dynamical description of the X-ray scattering process. We observe dominant signatures of core-excited Jahn-Teller induced symmetry breaking for resonant excitation. Solvent contributions are separable by shortening of the effective scattering duration through excitation energy detuning.

Probing the OH Stretch in Different Local Environments in Liquid Water

We use resonant inelastic X-ray scattering (RIXS) to resolve vibrational losses corresponding to the OH stretch where the X-ray absorption process allows us to selectively probe different structural subensembles in liquid water. The results point to a unified interpretation of X-ray and vibrational spectroscopic data in line with a picture of two classes of structural environments in the liquid at ambient conditions with predominantly close-packed high-density liquid (HDL) and occasional local fluctuations into strongly tetrahedral low-density liquid (LDL).

Nuclear Dynamical Correlation Effects in X-ray Spectroscopy from a Theoretical Time-Domain Perspective

To date X-ray spectroscopy has become a routine tool that can reveal highly local and element-specific information on the electronic structure of atoms in complex environments. Here, we focus on nuclear dynamical correlation effects in X-ray spectra and develop a rigorous time-correlation function method employing ground state classical molecular dynamics simulations. The importance of nuclear correlation phenomena is demonstrated by comparison against the results from the conventional sampling approach performed on the same data set for gas phase water. In contrast to the first-order absorption, second-order resonant inelastic scattering spectra exhibit pronounced fingerprints of nuclear motions. The developed methodology is not biased to a particular electronic structure method and, owing to its generality, can be applied to, e.g., X-ray photoelectron and Auger spectroscopies.

Electron-lattice interactions strongly renormalize the charge-transfer energy in the spin-chain cuprate Li2CuO2

Strongly correlated insulators are broadly divided into two classes: Mott-Hubbard insulators, where the insulating gap is driven by the Coulomb repulsion U on the transition-metal cation, and charge-transfer insulators, where the gap is driven by the charge-transfer energy Δ between the cation and the ligand anions. The relative magnitudes of U and Δ determine which class a material belongs to, and subsequently the nature of its low-energy excitations. These energy scales are typically understood through the local chemistry of the active ions. Here we show that the situation is more complex in the low-dimensional charge-transfer insulator Li2CuO2, where Δ has a large non-electronic component. Combining resonant inelastic X-ray scattering with detailed modelling, we determine how the elementary lattice, charge, spin and orbital excitations are entangled in this material. This results in a large lattice-driven renormalization of Δ, which significantly reshapes the fundamental electronic properties of Li2CuO2.

Selective probing of the OH or OD stretch vibration in liquid water using resonant inelastic soft-x-ray scattering

High-resolution O 1s resonant inelastic x-ray scattering spectra of liquid H2O, D2O, and HDO, obtained by excitation near the preedge resonance show, in the elastic line region, well-separated multiple vibrational structures corresponding to the internal OH stretch vibration in the ground state of water. The energy of the first-order vibrational excitation is strongly blueshifted with respect to the main band in the infrared or Raman spectra of water, indicating that water molecules with a highly weakened or broken donating hydrogen bond are correlated with the preedge structure in the x-ray absorption spectrum. The vibrational profile of preedge excited HDO water is well fitted with 50%±20% greater OH-stretch contribution compared to OD, which strongly supports a preference for OH being the weakened or broken H-bond in agreement with the well-known picture that D2O makes stronger H-bonds than H2O. Accompanying path-integral molecular dynamics simulations show that this is particularly the case for strongly asymmetrically H-bonded molecules, i.e., those that are selected by preedge excitation.

Spatial quantum beats in vibrational resonant inelastic soft x-ray scattering at dissociating states in oxygen

Resonant inelastic soft x-ray scattering (RIXS) spectra excited at the 1σ(g) → 3σ(u) resonance in gas-phase O2 show excitations due to the nuclear degrees of freedom with up to 35 well-resolved discrete vibronic states and a continuum due to the kinetic energy distribution of the separated atoms. The RIXS profile demonstrates spatial quantum beats caused by two interfering wave packets with different momenta as the atoms separate. Thomson scattering strongly affects both the spectral profile and the scattering anisotropy.

Resonant inelastic x-ray scattering and UV-VUV luminescence at the Be 1s edge in BeO

We carried out a combined study of UV-VUV luminescence and resonant x-ray emission from BeO single crystals with incident photon energies in the vicinity of the Be 1s absorption edge. The x-ray emission spectra show that at the Be 1s photoabsorption edge the lattice relaxation processes in the excitation site take place already on the timescale of the radiative decay of the core excitation. Comparison of the x-ray emission and the luminescence spectra indicates that the maximum energy loss of the process of lattice relaxation during the decay of inner-shell holes is similar to the loss that occurs in the self-trapping process of valence excitons. The possible decay channels of core excitations have been discussed and the mechanism for the creation of 5.2 eV luminescence at the photoabsorption resonances has been suggested.

Resonant inelastic scattering spectra of free molecules with vibrational resolution

Inelastic x-ray scattering spectra excited at the 1s(-1)π* resonance of gas phase O2 have been recorded with an overall energy resolution that allows for well-resolved vibrational progressions. The nuclear wave packet dynamics in the intermediate state is reflected in vibrational excitations of the electronic ground state, and by fine-tuning the excitation energy the dissociation dynamics in the predissociative B'(3)Πg final state is controlled.

Dynamics of electron-phonon scattering: crystal- and angular-momentum transfer probed by resonant inelastic x-ray scattering

Experimentally, we observe angular-momentum transfer in electron-phonon scattering, although it is commonly agreed that phonons transfer mostly linear momentum. Therefore, the incorporation of angular momentum to describe phonons is necessary already for simple semiconductors and bears significant implications for the formation of new quasiparticles in correlated functional materials. Separation of linear and angular-momentum transfer in electron-phonon scattering is achieved by highly selective excitations on the femtosecond time scale of resonant inelastic x-ray scattering.