The Coulomb four-body problem in a classical framework: triple photoionization of lithium

Formulating a quasiclassical approach we determine the cross section for the complete four-body break-up of the lithium ground state following single photon absorption from threshold up to 220 eV excess energy. In addition, we develop a new classification scheme for three-electron ionizing trajectories in terms of electron-electron collisions, thereby identifying two main ionization paths which the three electrons in the ground state of lithium follow to escape to the continuum. The dominant escape paths manifest themselves in a characteristic 'T-shape' break-up pattern of the three electrons which implies observable structures in the electronic angular correlation probability. This break-up pattern prevails for excess energies so low that the Wannier threshold law sigma proportional to E-alpha describes already the triple ionization cross section, whose predicted value alpha = 2.16 we can confirm quantitatively.