INITIAL-STATE DEPENDENCE OF THE PARTIAL AUGER TRANSITION RATES

For the first time the phenomenon of a strong variation of the branchi ng ratio for Anger decay into the fine components of an LS state when the Auger spectra are produced from different fine structure levels of the target is studied experimentally and theoretically. it is shown t hat the root of the phenomenon lies in the spin-orbit interaction of t he target which produces spin polarization in a selectively populated initial fine structure level. The concrete analysis is performed for s odium Anger spectra in the region of 2s2p(6)np (n = 3, 4) states excit ed by combined use of laser and fast electron beams. The ratio of the partial decay widths into epsilon s and epsilon d channels is extracte d from the initial-state-dependent spectra.