Calculation of resonant interatomic Coulombic decay widths of inner-valence-excited states delocalized due to inversion symmetry.

Inner-valence-excited states of clusters can decay by electron emission via several of mechanisms, the leading ones being intra-atomic autoionization and resonant interatomic Coulombic decay. Recently, we have derived the Wigner-Weisskopf theory for the calculation of the decay widths of the inner-valence excitations [J. Chem. Phys. 124, 144315 (2006)]. While the new method has been successful in producing the decay rates of heteronuclear diatomic clusters, it cannot be applied to systems possessing inversion symmetry, e.g., to homonuclear diatoms, due to delocalization of the molecular orbitals involved in the decay processes. In the present work, we show that the Wigner-Weisskopf theory of the decay of inner-valence-excited states can be generalized to systems with inversion symmetry using a technique of adapted final states [J. Chem. Phys. 125, 094107 (2006)]. The same technique can be employed when going beyond the Wigner-Weisskopf theory. We consider the experimentally relevant case of competing resonant interatomic Coulombic decay and autoionization in neon dimer and calculate the rates of these processes for a series of inner-valence-excited states which has been measured by Aoto et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 97, 243401 (2006)].