XATOM: an integrated toolkit for X-ray and atomic physics

Sang-Kil Son and Robin Santra

[BibTeX][poster: 5Mb]

X-ray free-electron lasers (XFEL) open a new era in science and technology, offering many unique opportunities that have not been conceivable with conventional light sources. Because XFELs produce ultrashort pulses with a very high X-ray photon fluence, materials interacting with XFEL pulses undergo significant radiation damage and possibly become highly ionized. To understand the underlying physics, it is crucial to describe detailed ionization and relaxation dynamics in individual atoms during XFEL pulses. Here we present an integrated toolkit to investigate X-ray-induced atomic processes and to simulate electronic damage dynamics. This XATOM toolkit can handle all possible electronic configurations of all atom/ion species, and calculate physical observables during/after intense X-ray pulses. By use of XATOM, we can explore many exciting XFEL-related phenomena from multiphoton multiple ionization to molecular imaging and warm dense matter formation.

Tags: XATOM, CFEL, DESY