SUBSHELL-DEPENDENT RELAXATION IN THE AUGER EFFECT

The effect of relaxation on KLL, LMM, and MNN Auger-electron spectra of Ne, Mg, Ar, Ca, Zn, and Kr has been studied by the Dirac-Fock method. The relaxation is shown to depend universally on the Auger-electron energy and on the number of peel electrons (N(r)) in subshells above the final-state holes. In the sudden-approximation limit (large N(r)) the relaxation saturates to 14% reduction of the Auger rates in analogy to the 20% reduction of deep inner-shell Dirac-Fock photoionization cross sections well above threshold. The isotropy of the relaxation is emphasized by its small influence on the angular distribution of Auger electrons.