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Complex decay pathways involving radiative and nonradiative relaxation after deep core-level ionization in argon are disentangled by a unique combination of several synchrotron radiation-based spectroscopic techniques. In particular, by comparing the results obtained from electron-ion coincidence, photon-ion coincidence, and x-ray emission measurements, we are able to distinguish the final ionic states produced in the cascade decay involving Kα and Kβ radiative decay and final ionic states produced by nonradiative cascade decay. High-resolution Auger electron spectroscopy is then used as a complementary tool to identify the LMM transitions contributing to the cascade decay. Ab initio calculations are performed to identify the electronic states involved in the LMM decay.

A combination of resonant inelastic x-ray scattering and resonant Auger spectroscopy provides complementary information on the dynamic response of resonantly excited molecules. This is exemplified for CH₃I, for which we reconstruct the potential energy surface of the dissociative I 3d⁻² double-core-hole state and determine its lifetime. The proposed method holds a strong potential for monitoring the hard x-ray induced electron and nuclear dynamic response of core-excited molecules containing heavy elements, where ab initio calculations of potential energy surfaces and lifetimes remain challenging.

We present a comprehensive experimental and theoretical investigation on the LMM, LMN, and LNN normal Auger spectra of xenon, which reveal excellent agreement with theory when core-hole lifetimes of the two-hole final states are taken into account. Generally, the spectra turned out to be highly complex due to a strong overlap of the Auger transitions subsequent to 2s1−/12, 2p1−/12, and 2p3−/12 ionization. This overlap is due to the splitting of the three initial L core holes and the different final M and N core holes being on the same order of magnitude of several hundred eV. The Auger transitions are assigned in detail based on the theoretical results. Most of the MM, MN, and NN final states are described well based on jj coupling. In addition, we present a detailed assignment of the resonant LM45M45 Auger transition subsequent to the 2s → 6p, 7p and 2p → 5d, 6d excitations.