Auger neutralization and de-excitation of helium at an aluminium surface: a unified treatment

The neutralization rate of He+ and the de-excitation rates of excited He atoms in front of an Al surface are computed. This is achieved by evaluating the transition of electronic eigenstates of the He+‐Al system to the He+ core hole while producing surface excitations. These surface excitations are computed in a self-consistent way. The present work accounts for the full many-body excitation of the metal surface as well as the hybridization of the He‐Al orbitals. This hybridization leads to a new qualitative picture of the Auger processes in which the neutralization and de-excitation processes are mixed. © 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.