Generalized atomic processes are proposed to establish a consistent description from the free-atom approach to the heated and even up to the cold solid. It is based on a rigorous introduction of the Fermi-Dirac statistics, Pauli blocking factors and on the respect of the principle of detailed balance via the introduction of direct and inverse processes. A probability formalism driven by the degeneracy of the free electrons enables to establish a link of atomic rates valid from the heated atom up to the cold solid. This allows to describe photoionization processes in atomic population kinetics and subsequent solid matter heating on a femtosecond time scale. The Auger effect is linked to the 3-body recombination via a generalized 3-body recombination that is identified as a key mechanism, along with the collisional ionization, that follows energy deposition by photoionization of inner shells when short, intense and high-energy radiation interacts with matter. Detailed simulations are carried out for aluminum that highlight the importance of the generalized approach.

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Abstract. The production of highly ionized states in xenon under intense xray irradiation, is discussed with the help of specific calculations. The approach, which retains only one-photon absorption processes (photo-ionization and photoexcitation) as well as Auger and radiative relaxations, makes use of properly defined superconfigurations as global ensemble of configurations. With a tractable number of (super)levels, we explain the occurence of the highest charge states observed in experiments.

Exotic x-ray emission from dense matter is identified as the complex high intensity satellite emission from autoionizing states of highly charged ions. Among a vast amount of possible transitions, double K-hole hollow ion (HI) x-ray emission K0LX → K1LX−1 + hνhollow is of exceptional interest due to its advanced diagnostic potential for matter under extreme conditions where opacity and radiation fields play important roles. Transient ab initio simulations identify intense short pulse radiation fields (e.g., those emitted by x-ray free electron lasers) as possible driving mechanisms of HI x-ray emission via two distinct channels: first, successive photoionization of K-shell electrons, second, photoionization followed by resonant photoexciation among various ionic charge states that are simultaneously present in high density matter. We demonstrated that charge exchange of intermixing inhomogenous plasmas as well as collisions driven by suprathermal electrons are possible mechanisms to populate HIs to observable levels in dense plasmas, particularly in high current Z-pinch plasmas and high intensity field-ionized laser produced plasmas. Although the HI x-ray transitions were repeatedly identified in many other cases of dense optical laser produced plasmas on the basis of atomic structure calculations, their origin is far from being understood and remains one of the last holy grails of high intensity laser–matter interaction.