HIGH-ENERGY BEHAVIOR OF THE DOUBLE PHOTOIONIZATION OF HELIUM FROM 2-KEV TO 12-KEV

We report the ratio of double-to-single photoionization of He at several photon energies from 2 to 12 keV. By time-of-flight methods, we find a ratio consistent with an asymptote at 1.5% +/- 0.2%, essentially reached by hnu almost-equal-to 4 keV. Fair agreement is obtained with older shake calculations of Byron and Joachain [Phys. Rev. 164, 1 (1967)], of Aberg [Phys. Rev. A 2, 1726 (1970)], and with recent many-body perturbation theory (MBPT) of Ishihara, Hino, and McGuire [Phys. Rev. A 44, 6980 (1991)]. The result lies below earlier MPBT calculations by Amusia et al. [J. Phys. B 8, 1248 (1975)] (2.3%), and well above semiempirical predictions of Samson [Phys. Rev. Lett. 65, 2861 (1990)], who expects no asymptote and predicts sigma(He2+)/sigma(He+) = 0.3% at 12 keV.