Spectroscopically resolved resonant interatomic Coulombic decay in photoexcited large He nanodroplets

Abstract: Interatomic Coulombic decay (ICD) processes play a crucial role in weakly bound complexes exposed to intense or high-energy radiation. Using large helium nanodroplets, we demonstrate that ICD is efficient even when the droplets are irradiated by weak synchrotron radiation at relatively low photon energies. Below the ionization threshold, resonant excitation of multiple centers efficiently induces resonant ICD as previously observed for intense pulses [A. C. LaForge et al., PRX 11, 021011 (2021)]. More surprisingly, we observe ICD even above the ionization threshold due to recombination of photoelectrons and ions into excited states which subsequently decay by ICD. This demonstrates the importance of secondary processes, in particular electron scattering and recombination, in inducing ICD in extended condensed phase systems. In addition, we show that ICD can serve as a diagnostic tool for monitoring the relaxation dynamics of highly-excited and ionized weakly-bound nanosystems.