Post-collision-interaction distortion of low-energy photoelectron spectra associated with double Auger decay

Atomic inner-shell photoionization followed by double Auger decay is investigated. The focus of our study is the effect of post-collision interaction (PCI) on the photoelectron energy distribution. A semi-classical approach is employed to describe the PCI distortion of the photoelectron line shapes associated with both direct and cascade double Auger decays. This approach is shown to be valid at low photoelectron energies, whereas for large incident photon energies it reduces to the eikonal approximation. The theory is applied to the case of Ar 2p photoionization spectra and good agreement with available experimental data is achieved.